"Return to Mother Redcap's "
And it's men to your oilskins and women your shawls,
There’ll be brandy and whiskey and rum for us all!...
And what did we care if we killed two or three?
We’ll still go a-wreckin’ down at Wallasey!
"The Wallasey Wreckers" by The Wreckers
The old wreckers' inn on the shoreline,
long gone but you recall it from childhood
as you visit your mother in the home on the hill
above river: smell of an accident, urine and feces
in the fluoresced halls. Mum's every need cared
for, starched pillowcases and a starchy matron
with gold watch pinned to her blouse. All planned,
accounted for: her medication times
and supper at 6:00 pm, pills and food in plastic
compartments--all decreed, regulated, measured.
Mum's life, or what's left of it, tidied away, plotted
on charts in actuarial plats. You wonder
what happened to the parrot gabbling on your
shoulder, that lithe hilarious youth wading
in the cold tide laden with chests brimming
with spade guineas and pieces of eight.
© 2006 Christopher T. George
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