Why did you cut my toenails jagged

on the day I came out, Mum?

That night I lay awake thinking

‘Does Mum not love me anymore?’

 

Did you have a conversation with the scissors 

on that day I came out, Mum?

Blade stabbed my toe

Gushed with blood

You didn’t put on a bandage

Didn’t kiss it better

 

You can’t hoover up memories

 

I breathe in and go into your bedroom

for the first time since it happened

Everything left how I remembered

Teddies on the dressing table

Bedside photo of me taken recently

Tablets to be taken

Your slippers by the bed

The bed where you used to cut my toenails

right up until it happened

45 years give or take

 

Jagged crooked toenails

forever within its fibres

Dad goes over the carpet with a hoover

They can’t be sucked up

So swallow

these jagged little pills

 

I lay awake that night thinking

‘Who’s going to cut my toenails now,

now that this has happened

now that you have passed?’

 

 

 

I visit Tracey in her foot clinic

who cut your toenails, Mum

Gloves on

Socks off

Toenails pruned

Anecdotes of Ireland

against the throbbley gristley noise

of toenails drilled smooth

A jagged turn taken

‘Molly Malone. Tart with a heart’

I giggle

Tracey corrects herself

‘Tart with the cart’

Mum, you would have giggled too