Holly Jacob – ‘To the Travelling Ash of My Grandfather’s Eyebrow’

How long did you skip along pebbles, to then bow

And dissipate into the Thames,

To wade through water amongst lovers, who once held hands on the Seine,

Spot of ash that was once a part of his eyebrow.

Or did you take flight over Heathrow,

Circling between being sucked up and spit out by turbines,

Or on your birthday, enter a tar-filled Berlin club confine

And grind against the left nipple of Marylin Monroe,

If you couldn’t help it, I won’t tell Grandma.

It’s better for her to think you were clinging to her hair,

As he wrote her letters in his Cambridge dorm chair.

But of course, the distance between him and you is  far.

Did you rest upon the metal sides of a hospice bed,

Where great-men scare their grand-daughters,

Watching their eyes water,

As breath staggers towards a suffocating end .

I don’t think you’re part of a brook babbling,

Or once seasoned my carrots and peas.

Maybe the air raised you above me walking.

To then onward go,  forever travelling.