my mother's tit and tat

from corner to corner
an assault course of crock and bauble.
trinket and trifle,
gimcrack, knickknack,
widgets, whatsits, debris, doodads, bunk and junk.

towers that collapse and crumble under the weight of their own neglect.
tiny polly-pocket worlds of wrinkling reams inside inside inside of folders.
boxes inside boxes, like matryoshka dolls.
through latin and russian - my matron and mother.
stacked into columns so tall 
they threaten to meet at the top to form arches
and forever block the sun in underground tunnels, 
fit for squinting rodents. so defensive of her mounds,
the vole house.
the house i grew up in.

when i visit the little crooked house
deep in the guts of birmingham
i feel as if i am wading through runny flab
drowning in the excess
crouching through aching arches of forgotten paper
snippets, clippings, printouts. incomplete tangents.
my mother's ideas trailing off into obscurity
to remain undiscovered until too late to enjoy.
when they will be the tatters of the dresses to which i used to cling with little fingers.
when they will absorb my eyes with her forgotten spells.
when i will have to send my mother's silent cackle into the crackle of an industrial furnace.

on the fridge in the kitchen -
that aladdin's cave of culinary alchemy -
a magnet says,
"please do not write your name in the dust"
and i laugh as i read it,
laugh with my beautiful mother,
at the bags and boxes, 
wherein one can find relics relics relics
of recipes that were never to be tasted;
like squirrels forgetting where they left their feast.
the growing bags under her eyes.

my mother is a hoarder
so i must wait for her senility,
thereby robbing me of the catharsis
of burning books
of refining volumes
of the breaking of paper chains.
till senility,
as these days most of us must
with such an excellent national health service
that lets our smiles rot before we are finished being young
and keeps us alive long enough for our minds to do the same.

on this cusp of dementia
on this line for which my mother would kill me
or possibly herself
with those pills she told me about
on my 14th birthday

and she tells me to be careful with that axe, you gene of mine
careful of this hoardom, forcing me to perform covert burials.
midnight fly tipping jobs.
back and forth from one tip to the other.
tip tip tip toeing to the windy landfills to which me must all return,
one day in a box,
to be eaten by worms and worse,
to be lost in a gust,
and blow away
blow away
remember
remember