I call my mother by her childhood nickname,

Mary Mulholland

Dodo, but she wasn’t stupid,

nor ungainly, only flightless

with her store of stories

behind Demerara shutters.

Listen with Dodo every day

after lunch. She’d come alive again

in Guyana as we sat under

overcast English skies and greyness

grew in my bones.

When she ran out of talk, I’d say

tell me again about the mermaids, Dodo,

rising from the sea on their tails,

the ones you saw with your own eyes.

I longed to believe in women-fish.

MARY MULHOLLAND’s poems are widely published, most recently in Stand, Pomegranate London, and forthcoming in Obsessed with Pipework and 14 Magazine. She came 3rd in Write out Loud competition and was a recent finalist in the Mslexia, Live Canon and Aesthetica prizes. www.marymulholland.co.uk