Poetry

Lasagna

The pressed and hung pasta strips
clicked on the sill
in front of Mum’s herb patch.
The date palm housed a parliament
of poultry for the one cat poised
at the edge of the corrugated guttering.
Mum was turning the Wintergreen couch
she planted to lay a mosaic of porcelain shards:
a pink and gold-leafed rim jostled
against a half-moon of Liz’s pottery assignment.
The shattered floor was slippery
when Mum hosed it down. She stacked
a row of pots there and put a fan in one.
When the lasagna was cooking, Mum
turned towards the window
to listen to the fan’s unstoppable buzz
as the evening came on.