poem

Penny McCarthy: COMMENDED Endurance

Shackleton cuts through the ice
like my mother's scissor-blade
dividing curtain fabric –
V-shaped, it falls away.

You watch one side or the other.
The point at which it cleaves
you never see. Men in the rigging
crawl over white fields.

You see my mother's shadow-hand,
her arm darken the green.
You see her tongue, curled
to her lip, in concentration.

Shackleton's four sisters
were not explorers.
My mother's four brothers
were never fathers.

Shackleton saw a 'gem-like star'
hours before he died.
'It's all unravelling',
my mother said.