Studio

She lets go my hand

to unlock the door.

The smell of linseed oil,

turpentine and damp

rushes to meet me.

I shiver in the cavernous

cold white room.

Huge painted canvases,

some draped in ghostly sheets,

stand about the studio

await her return,

just as we would wait

at home.

I daub

my small gessoed board,

stirring the colours

with her old brush

until my vermilion

and indigo flower

turn to brown.

She stands in front of 

a canvas twice her size. 

Her hand moves quickly

intent on every brush stroke.

Face tight with concentration.

‘This is the ayatollah and the Pope

standing on women 

who are having babies

who are having more babies

and below them the babies 

are being massacred.’

I look at my small rotund mother

who has hugged me a million times,

sung me to sleep with ‘Scarbourgh Fair’,

cooked bubbling macaroni cheese,

made square pink birthday cakes.

Then I look at the painting,

from the top where two men stand,

down past the women with their

legs open, giving birth 

to the woman below them,

down to the children 

screaming and dripping with blood

paddling in a red river.