THE SUMS

Somewhere you are always going home
some shred of the rag of events
is for ever being torn off and kept
in an inside pocket or creased satchel
like the crayon drawing, blurred now,
you frowned over once in a desk

- it's kept for the moment when you go
mooching along the verandah and through
the back door, brass-handled, always ajar,
to where the floured apron stands monumental
above veined legs in a cloud of savoury steam,
mince, onions, the smell of childhood's Julys;

there again you are quick-flounced and shrill
shrieking on a high stool the answers
to sums - multiplication, addition, subtraction
all the mysteries known as 'Mental', alchemy
...