I remember your birthdays as always sunny, with an occasional shower, maybe, but I only ever picture you with golden shimmers. Your smiles started as honeyed glimmers reflected in your sky-blue eyes, rapt with homemade gifts, so badly wrapped. Once, we took you to a restaurant; inside was candlelit while summer blazed outside. Tipsy with […]
Tag: Mother
The last time I saw her
there was a clamour in my soul’s anatomy, a sixth sense enmeshed in a daughter’s flesh. I held her fragile hand, touched fingernails, like fractured shells embedded in sand. The lump of imminent loss stuck in my throat like a dry piece of toast can never be swallowed. I cannot forget how her sacrifice spread […]
Like Marilyn
In those old photographs, I see a teenager, pale and lacking confidence, happy to allow mother or sister-in-law to take over for a while, united in womanhood, your blonde hair curled around your face, like Marilyn’s. I arrived too soon. The sparkle of the glamorous life you hoped for faded into monochrome. You grew up […]
Mother’s Algebra
Joined still to her mother’s placental algebra, she solves puzzles of love, life and parabola; sucking subtractions at a withering breast, expressing equations many years suppressed. Mathematics learned at the maternal knee curves and circles into geometry. Kim M. Russell, 9th August 2018 My response to Imaginary Garden with Real Toads Wordy Thursday with Wild […]
This Little Piggy
A little girl holds on to a chair, teetering in her mother’s shoes, shiny leather stilettos, her feet squashed down into the toes. Granny smiles, forgets for a moment the bunions on her aching feet, the pain when walking down the street, the raw skin and unbearable heat. After bath time, with pyjamas on, they […]
A poem in this month’s Visual Verse
I missed the deadline for Visual Verse in February while staying with my daughter before Mum’s funeral, so I was keen to submit a poem this month. I’m pleased to post a link to the March issue, Vol. 4, Chapter 5 of the online Visual Verse anthology. You can find my poem ‘Mothering’ on page […]
Honesty Seed
a silvery moon rustles with a puff of wind releases its seeds creating separate moons in orbit round the mother Kim M. Russell, 2017 Image found on Pinterest My response to Carpe Diem #1120 Seed I am late in responding to this prompt because of the death of my mother on Monday morning. Please appreciate […]
Some of my Mother is Missing
Lost slippers and kittens, Long ago days on a windy beach, The china owl you gave her, All are out of reach. The smile you remember is missing, A fading smear on her lips; The touch of the hand you are holding Is a mere brush of her fingertips. The photographs that you show her […]
My Mother’s Smile
My response to Carpe Diem #1026 Smile Today’s inspirational quote is from Mother Teresa (1910-1997): “Let us always meet each other with smile, for the smile is the beginning of love.” lined and thinned with age the ghost of her smile survives a spark in blue eyes © Kim M. Russell, 2016
Mother’s Warning
My response to Mindlovemisery’s Menagerie Wordle #113 “June 13th, 2016” In an ocean of dust And human detritus, Slithery silverfish gather In bathroom bacchanalia, Feasting on rancid remnants of mascara, Flakes of torn-off toilet tissue and wallpaper. As I heave and fumble, My face translucent At the sickening sight, I recall an element Of cliché In […]
writing in north norfolk 