Festival Poets

Parting Shots

 

Always before

she stepped through the door

my mother would give her hair

a last shot of spray

then a few shots more

with her headscarf on

because

 

she might as well,

she was holding the can,

the wind might tousle

her forehead curl,

you never could be too sure.

 

This made no sense

to anyone else.

Of course.

Which might have been the point.

 

No-one required it,

no-one prompted

this small act,

it was inconsequentially her own,

not work or a chore. And yet

it had a completeness – the way

she’d give the hallway too –

accomplice to this ritual –

a good-luck blast

 

and only then

step to the door

through lilac-simulacrum air,

more fit for the day.