Ancestors in a Shadow

while shovelling

a pile of stones the colour of my eighty-four-year-old nonna’s hands

back, mind, humming under task and sun

I catch out a shadow slouched

between the pebbled hack and scrape

my shape

though not the shape I’ve shaped

not

the poised reflection I summon each morning

when I focus, tilt here

while I diffuse there, there

and there

this shadow has an unashamedly slavic profile

chin tucked in for the task

petulant angle of hands and back even

as I rest the shovel

a daintiness caused by praying mantis wrists

who murmur of trouble

the economy of joints

a lumbar and sacrum who live together

but are no longer on speaking terms

my inheritance, along with a molar that grew

and fell three times

and last ribs

both sides

three times as long as they should be

from the sidelines of my eye

I catch this shadow out time and again

in each instant as it freezes

before becoming coy

I witness my grandmother

my grandfather

all the others before

condensed

in a collection of stones

to a singularity

Image and poetry Alison Boyd © 2013.