Women's Day & Mother's Day

They sounded like fairytales,

stories that Mum told

of lost fortunes, drunk men

and moonlight flits –

resourcefulness demanded

in those interwar years.

Before then too:

great-grandmother Rose,

jobbing actress, sneaking

babies in baskets

into dressing rooms –

or her mother, Ann,

standing on the dock

in Liverpool, newly arrived

from famine-wasted Ireland

not knowing how

they’d ever make ends meet.

And on the stairs now, pictures –

mother, grandmother, daughter –

here and in the ascendant.

 

8 March is both International Women's Day and Mother's Day in Bulgaria.

Images: Marina Shiderova; text: Tom Phillips