Four Poems by Georgia Hilton
Visiting My Ex-Boyfriend’s Mother
She asks me to overlook
the imposing portrait of herself
in the hall – a present
from her deceased husband –
I’m not really as cold as that.
The painter has captured her
with a glittering diamond
in the eye, an imperious mouth.
Don’t worry, I say,
I don't see you like that.
I think the painter
was painting his own mother
and borrowed your features.
You will always be
that nice girl from Athlone.
She seems relieved. There is
something still between us –
me, the long lost mother
of her phantom grandchildren.
Mock Tudor, Neo-Georgian
In a strange, soulless
South London suburb,
children return
to empty houses.
The grown-ups must
still exist they think,
at least someone
has stocked the fridge –
a note on the chest
freezer says that there are
Findus Crispy Pancakes.
They look for their parents’
faces in drinks cabinets,
computer consoles,
glass coffee tables.
Beds are made, pyjamas
are folded and smell of Persil.
And yet, where are they?
Those ghosts of people
who stood behind you
and pushed you high, high,
higher, until you wondered
if the swings might detach
and catapult you
into the atmosphere.
You’re sure you saw them
at Christmas,
she manicured,
with a frozen smile
that matched the decorations.
He wearing a shirt
you had never seen him in,
his severity at least familiar.
Remember when
you used to break vases
just to summon him?
A vengeful spirit
breathing fumes
of alcohol and Listerine.
Cinderella
If I were to slip into the river,
it would not be at Poor Man’s
Kilkee, where teenagers
and vagrants take their ease
with cans of lager.
Nor would it be on O’Callaghan’s
Strand, where the grey silt
is deep, deep and a dozen swans
are on the slipway.
Nor would I make a dramatic
leap off Sarsfield Bridge
by the boat club, where an
indecisive light flickers
over the martyrs of 1916.
No – I would choose this
stretch, just downstream
of the Curraghower
with views of King John’s Castle
and Thomond Bridge.
By day the seagulls swoop
and dive, swans fight
the estuary current,
and you can see the hills
of Clare beyond the bend
of the river at the Island Field.
But by night my eyes are drawn
only to the water –
the roiling inky black
inviting me to shed
my history,
surrender my skin.
The old stone steps are there,
I would not need to climb or jump
but simply descend like a debutante –
keeping both shoes on.
The Bathroom Incident
We were alone in the house
when I heard you call out.
For once you did not run through
an involuntary roll-call
of girl-children.
Ann, Bernadette, Jessica, Linda,
I mean Jane, I mean…
before you settled on my name.
There was something in the tone –
urgent but controlled – and I
climbed the stairs more rapidly
than usual, not pausing
to count each step, or going down
two steps and up three over
and over again, but straight
to the top, and into the bathroom
where I found you on your back
in the bath, fully clothed,
neck wedged at an improbable angle
behind the taps, arms and legs
in the air, a friendly beetle.
The smile still fixed on your face,
as if this was all perfectly normal.
When you saw me you said only
Help me up love, there’s a good girl.
………………..
Georgia Hilton is a poet and fiction writer originally from Ireland but now living in Winchester, Hampshire. In 2018, her poem Dark-Haired Hilda Replies to Patrick Kavanagh was the joint winner of the Brian Dempsey Memorial Prize, and her debut pamphlet I went up the lane quite cheerful was published by Dempsey and Windle in the same year. Georgia’s first full collection, Swing, is available now, also from Dempsey and Windle.
Twitter: @GGeorgiahilton