for Owen
Time wounds all heels – Groucho Marx

Liadain and I laughed when I found the blue
lined paper with its old scribbled note
to the convent, Haven't I still got that desperate
pain in my heel! And the worst of it is that
I've got it now. I'm the age Mammy was then.
It must be my years, Time's crumble or
the opinionated might opine – stored memory/
stigmata inherited. Only her pain was worse
with varicose veins and standing long nights
after ten children. I felt for her, couldn't bear,
the purple grapes clustered on her shins,
the good leg and the bad leg and when the good leg
became worse than the bad leg, it became easier
for everyone, even herself sometimes, to laugh.

Martina Evans’s most recent book is The Windows of Graceland (Carcanet). A new collection, Now We Can Talk Openly About Men, is due in 2018