Growing Up

This morning, as I commuted through Hendon Central,
I remembered you telling me you saw
that day’s newspaper there on a board,
announcing the king had died, how life stalled
for a moment. This evening I got the call
I’d long dreaded, telling me you were dead.
‘We are not a grandchild,’ Thatcher might have said.
My kingdom has lost its last queen. I grow tall
into the footsteps of each late centenarian
grandmother, may start taking the Telegraph.
I cry, then hear both of them laugh
with an obstinacy that skipped a generation,
realise I’m now their only resurrection,
have crossed the chess board, no longer a pawn.