Two poems by Helen Ivory

My Grandmother’s Ghost
Helen Ivory

My grandmother’s ghost
is a child with boxing gloves
at the end of her spiky arms.
She is outside the house
she was too scared to leave,
peering angrily in.

My grandmother’s ghost
plays boogie-woogie
on an out of tune piano in the yard.
Without gloves,
her hands are shelled crabs
scuttling up and then down the keys.

   
Making Rain
Helen Ivory

It’s always summer-time in the cellar
and the chickens are chattering softly
to each other about the impossibility
of this, and other things.

When the light-bulb blows
and no one comes to replace it
they’ll look like they’ve been plucked alive
if anyone could see them.

So when the villagers shoot at clouds
and the unstoppable rain comes
they will be already suitably goose-fleshed
and chilled through to their hearts.

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