Plastic Lovespoon

I can’t bring myself to mention that
the mince pies I bought for her two Christmases ago
are still in the fridge behind the three-
and-a-half boxes of chocolate
brazils (that she can’t eat, now her front teeth
have gone AWOL) and have probably
gone slimy. And I can’t say
that even the apple juice –
which you’d think would be safe in its foil-
lined carton –
tastes dusty.

To say so would be akin to remarking
that despite the lithographs of Tintern Abbey on the wall
and her favourite Celtic cross-stitch patterns
she hasn’t been in Wales (albeit Monmouthshire – but that’s another
argument she will win)
since she left
in 1953: in other words this
would be asking for

the lectures on how she followed
her husband dutifully to Iran, the Congo,
Saudi Arabia and even – God forbid –
Ireland;

and the story about how she saved her life
(and more importantly her reputation)
with a packet of Benson & Hedges when kidnapped
by guerrillas in
Bolivia.

I won’t bring myself to criticise the drawer
where she still saves bits of string
for tying potential packages, old tin foil,
balloons, and stripy straws that were somehow chewed
into crumpled ribbons by
Cariad the Pomeranian (RIP, 1972). Even though there’s mould
in there amongst the popped
party poppers and dried-up
playdough.

Doing so would lead to an inspection of the drawer,
the proud pronouncement (conveniently she will have misplaced
her specs) that there isn’t a tidier drawer in the whole of
Hertfordshire. The rummaging to sift through
decades of useless mementoes
and elastic bands dropped by the postman
until –
there!

She draws out the plastic crocodile-shaped
spoon with which she used to forcefeed me
banana-flavoured Penicillin when I was ill, (I never would take
the tangerine),
and I am humbled by the years of tellings-off and school plays
and broken hearts and tonsillitis that the spoon has
swallowed up.

Then she’ll shuffle off and leave me to tidy up
the drawer, saying mock-bitterly (she knows the true
state of things) that anything I think is archaic or useless
can just be thrown away.

She invariably leaves me holding the spoon, the plastic
Lovespoon that my mamgu and I shared,
and I replace it in the drawer and go and nibble
a rusting chocolate brazil to break
her smug silence as she sits
embroidering Celtic knots
and Hardanger sheep.