Margaret's Children

MARGARET'S CHILDREN

My aunt, the foster-mother, had a salt-crock 

squatting on the kitchen table,

a wide-mouthed, household goddess

gasping a surprised 'O' into her loud kitchen.

Using it,

she thawed the ice on the doorstep,

killed snails,

bathed blisters,

administered mouthwash.

Standing next to it,

she savoured gossip,

salted beans, porridge,

meat, pastry,

and the odd tail.

Her hand reached for the rough crystals,

and scattered them like blessings,

or, spilling some, pitched them up right-handed,

over her left shoulder,

to get that foolish Devil in the eye.

The sturdy stone crock, freckled and blasted,

Brown-glazed, cracked and mouthy,

said everything about Margaret.

On the day of her funeral, her children stood

touching the deity, lighting the twinkling candles

and, with salt tears, gasping their Os into the too-quiet kitchen.

[Runner-up NAWG poetry comp.]