Souvenir
Mother;a word pressed in the pattern
of blue and white bone china.
It holds the smell of English
marigolds and arnica.
I remember
a windowsill
littered with glass pots.
I looked for you like a lost
library card.
The sound of your sandals
felt like rain. You were
dense green swirls
on a wool carpet, oranges
in a net shopping bag,
the scent of warm rice.
Memories stick
like fridge magnets.
Blurred polaroids.
Doodles – a biro
thrown into a waste bin.
A dial tone.
Housekeeping
Sarah-Jane’s poems can be read in various journals including Muddy River Poetry Review and the Wales Haiku Journal. Her poems have been shortlisted for the Haiku Foundation’s ‘Touchstone’ award, and the Canterbury Festival ‘Poet of the year’ award. She is an educator at Hereford College of Arts, UK and a researcher at Birmingham City University. Inspired by fairytales, nature, psychogeography and surrealism, she uses bricolage as a technique to uncover the unusual and surprising in the everyday. Tweets at @sarahjfc
Banner: An excerpt from Housekeeping, a visual poem by Sarah-Jane Crowson
IceFloe Press 