Hot drinks cupped in clever hands
Over old tables strewn with days happenings
And wood wormed with conversations about grandad, the garden
and the starlings that have moved into the roof
As you grow, you realise that grownups aren’t made so,
They built from what has been,
a paper trail of loves and losses leading here
To me, to this sofa sinking in a sun-gold evening,
the storm clouds having drifted out to sea
They’ll be back she says with a twinkle in her eye, don’t go looking for them
Knowing full well of my trips to the hilltop with a lightning rod

Then we make something spicy in a big pot, the biggest one we have
Drifting through reminiscence and into practicality
Chopping tomatoes from the greenhouse along with greens
from a riverbank where the red clay sticks
where a smaller me hurled it in handfuls at an unsuspecting sister
Nourishing are these days spent playing and unwinding with these women of mine
Whose stories I press like flowers between the pages of myself

Later, fireside it tumbled from my lips,
All about the pain that had taken root in my blood,
Lifting my shirt to show them the holes in my belly,
thinking I’m about to be thoroughly told off for my foolishness,
But instead they strip and show me old scars of their own,
pulling me in, pressing our bellies together,
telling me to breathe,
until the tears run freely,

In the morning I wash while they wee
Then breakfast, more tea,
Bumbling through half-clad mornings
Let's get you outside they say,
The sea is calling this morning
You could do with a good dunking

Bryony Moores O’Sullivan is a founding member of Chasing Cow Productions, and a graduate from the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama, whom specialises in puppetry, poetry and illustration.