Blackthorn

On Sunday,
before Mum’s cancer was confirmed
winter yawned a warm shiver
and wee white buds
—still with a boreal bite—
popped from dark-bark spindles,
      yet to leaf,
phosphorescent against blue-black hues
like earth stars discarded from the sky.

I nipped outside and snipped the
baby branches from the main trunk,
rehoming them indoors, redressing
the air with decaying base notes,
topped with a sweet spring clean,
      fusing seasons
that Mum inhaled as she snoozed,
embracing Sunday

      and later awakening
with death-breath
expelling Blackthorn from the house,
screaming in the mother tongue
      severed at the root
twenty-two years mute.