Hazel Goodwin Morrissey Brown
I salvaged one photograph from the general clear-out, plucked
(Somehow still dripping) from the river of my childhood.
You in your G.D.R.-Worker phase, salient, rehabilitated:
Reagan, you can't have your Banana Republic and eat it!
Your protest banner and your scraped back hair withstood the flood.
I've hung your smile beside your latest business card: Nuskin Products.

Contact address: Titirangi, New Zealand. Out there a psychic
Explained how, in a previous life, I'd been your mother,
Guillotined dUring the French Revolution. You were my albino son.
You saw fire in the windows. This time round we returned to the garrison -
Swanned round Paris in the summer playing guess-your-lover.
I wonder how many of our holidays have closed down cycles.

Anyway, I believe it. Because when you drove to the airport
And didn't come back, it was dèjá vu. And I had to fight,
As all mothers do, to let you go. Our lived-in space
...