Offerings

Jackdaws leave no note, just gnarled twigs like bony fingers pointing
at the women who live like clichés: alone, on a hill, with cats.

The clichéd cats bring a wet-shocked shrew for the cauldron,
a rabbits’ paw for luck, a toad for a stew and one fat gold
Koi Carp from next door (that the herons take the flack for).

Sometimes, the offerings are alive:
a blackbird jolted onto the altar of our front step,
or a writhing wood pigeon sacrificed before us.

The man who wooed my mother first brought fruit:
ripe mangoes and pineapples sprouting from the mat.
A year later: pulped, blended, cartons of juice leaning
their backs against the door, ready to fall onto the floor laughing.

Sometimes, there are wild garlic leaves wrapped in tissue,
rhubarb and raspberry jam in mayonnaise jars, field mushrooms,
parcels with stamps of unknown warriors, birds of paradise.

But the stone shrine is wide and cold this winter. Offerings
are made elsewhere: a crystal pendant hanging from a fence
rocking itself, kidnapped geraniums taped to a tree, a candle

beside an empty box of matches carefully placed
in a polythene bag, with instructions and her name.