Aunt Beth’s Photographs

by John Stocks

You kept Doves, they said, Doves that fell like blossoms.
In old photographs you bloom like a Madonna,
Your sensuous smiles cutting through the sepia
Like it’s swinging Saturday night,
Wriggling your bottom.

The collier lads, buried alive before they’re twenty,
Would treat you roughly, lunging for your bosom
Leering, beery mouths gaping in the darkness
Your little girl voice lost in their barbarous cackle.

Love found you in the end though as they promised
Lying in the scarlet afterglow of passion
Before the toast browning sweetly on the embers
And then sent you to the city, buying dresses.

In late photographs, now all furs and feathers
All lined and wrinkled like a pickled peach
Your eyes still as sharp as your glinting needles
As you dance with death in your stiffening sleep.