Brief Encounter

She’s been arm in arm with the grandmother
who died when I was six months old,
sleeping undisturbed for sixty years,
abandoned in a dusty attic -
a mother that I never knew.
But on a memory stick she’s resurrected now
and in that brief, ten second clip I’m introduced
to the slender shape, the slow, sweet smile
with which my father fell in love.

I try in vain to link this silent apparition
walking down a 30’s street
in calf length skirt, hand knitted top,
with the ready laugh, the Valleys voice,
the soundtrack to my childhood.
But this stranger on the celluloid
strides swiftly on, steps out of frame,
leaves me staring at an empty screen.

Gill Garrett

If you have any thoughts on this poem, Gill Garrett  would be pleased to hear them.