Visitor

Visitor

My ancient aunt visited my grandmother each year.

She was a mystery of time, recipes and lavender,

and the oven worked hard when she arrived.

The skin on the back of her hands was so thin

that the veins appeared like tangled threads,

and she moved so quickly they seemed to unravel.

One morning, while watching her speckle lamingtons,

I asked if she remembered being young.

She looked out the window and her smile answered my question.

Perhaps I thought she had been conjured by time

into a family fixture and given mobility at Christmas

to pass down wisdom and butterfly cakes.

At night with the flour gentle as snow in its bin

and the oven cooling, she would take out her crochet

and place an intricate pattern at her finger-tips.

She appeared to be making something fragile

and free flowing, undoubtedly an heirloom

gainsaying its past in a young girl’s future.

I studied it when she left the room to find more cotton.

It was a repetitive pattern like a day lived and concluded—

each yesterday hooked carefully into the day before,

and the one being done now destined to be linked with tomorrow.

She returned and rearranged it all across her knees,

only she and time knowing which day would reach the border.

Ken Stone