Remembering My Mother on St Lucy's Day.(Poem)

 
REMEMBERING MY MOTHER 
ON ST LUCY'S DAY 
--the shortest day of the year 
 
   It felt like midnight on the market 
   at the back of Leo's not-very-super-store, 
   midnight or medieval as the light flickered 
   and the gutters blocked and overran the ground. 
   You held up a jumper as if hopeful 
   but you were not hopeful, you were drowning 
   with a pretence of hope, deathshead hope, 
   you held it up as if ... and I said no. 
 
   The world was dying on that market square 
   and we were in it, dying, and bitter the wind 
   and bitter the grit of sleet in our faces 
   and you had no gloves and your hands, ...