My Mother’s House

by Claire O’Brien


My mother’s house in winter
smells of garlic and wood smoke.
She’s in the kitchen
stirring something sizzling.

Bangles clinking
on her red wine glass,
music wafting through the soft-lit rooms,
she’s smiling and the orange lilies gleam.

In jeans she’s padding down the timbered hall
framed by the fire’s glow,
giggling at my palms on the pane
she’s opening the door –

my nose sharpened by the cold,
the ice in my stomach melting,
bags dropped at the door
I slide into the warmth.


* * * * *

Claire O’Brien is an active nature lover and lives beside a river on the coast of Queensland, Australia.  She is an emerging writer who has won prizes in Australian Poetry competitions and writes poetry and essays.