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Grief Limmericks: A Poem

My mother is lying there dead.
Memories crumble like bread.
After the strokes,
no more chats, no more jokes.
My mother is lying there dead.
My mother is lying there dead.
The things that I ought to have said,
but couldn’t, somehow,
will never say now.
My mother is lying there dead.
My mother is lying there dead.
Those bedtime stories she read:
Pooh, Wind in the Willows.
Her face on the pillows.
My mother is lying there dead.
My mother is lying there dead.
Is this numbness I’m feeling or dread?
The thing with your mother
is you don’t get another.
My mother is lying there dead.
My mother is lying there dead.
I stare at her tilted-back head.
Four years of goodbye.
Something’s wrong with my eye.
My mother is lying there dead.
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Harry Ricketts is a poet, biographer, editor and essayist. Born and brought up in England, he lives in Wellington, Aotearoa, New Zealand where he taught for many years in the English Programme at Te Herenga Waka Victoria University of Wellington.

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