I was writing my doll’s name on the back of her neck
when Mummy caught fire — a noisy distraction.
She was wearing a loose blue flowered smock
(an old maternity smock, I now deduce,
from her pregnancy with my sister four years earlier,
being used as an overall, not to waste it);
the hem flapped over the hearth she was sweeping,
and caught on a live coal from last night’s fire.
I tore myself away from writing ‘Margaret’
to save her life. ‘Lie down, Mummy!’ I said,
and helped to smother her flames in the hearthrug.
So much is memory. The rest was praise:
What a good girl, how sensible, how calm!
But ‘how well-taught’ is what they should have said.
She saved her own life, really. She’d made sure
we knew fire travels upwards, and needs air.
After all, this was the ‘phoney war’ –
she was waiting for all of England to catch fire.
From Fleur Adcock Collected Poems (Bloodaxe, 2024); first published in Dragon Talk (Bloodaxe, 2010)
