Nana, writing you
into the history of this place.

1.
They ask me to conjure a tale from these walls. A memorial of sorts. A cairn. Built to
stand in reimagined space. Standing here, like a mystic divining for a presence. For a
trace of you. A beat to arrange these lines to, a pulse revived for testament. You were
here. You were here. You were here. You were here. That you were here in this place. In
the story of this place.

2.
In your uniform of a domestic, in the hospital kitchens, evidence is lost…There is a
photograph of you standing with the rest of the kitchen staff, she tells me, your
daughter- our family archivist, as she scrolls through scanned in old photos on her
phone. failing to find it. She tells me that she stood with her sister in their Sunday best.
beside you. Three brown faces.

3.
Started as a domestic in the hospital kitchens in 1965 or 1962? I forget. Did I ever really
know? Thirty five years or so, you spent here. From domestic to cook working with the
hospital nutritionists. Preparing the restricted diets. You, who was once a refugee, who
arrived at a camp, so starved, they did not believe you were still a human girl. Is that
ironic, I wonder, briefly, for all I can see before me, a vision in my own sepia, is you, is
you bringing food from your galley kitchen to us, gathered hungry, always hungry for
you. Did you leave the peppercorns in, like cannonballs? Like medicine you couldn’t
take.

4.
From those walk-in freezers, you took ice cream wrapped in greaseproof paper, and
offered it like the sweetest thing, treasure, to your two girls dressed in the blue of
longed for skies.

5.
And when the sky turned grey and dressed you in widow’s black you found love in the
face of a porter, sharing tea with you, in the porter’s howf.

6.
And when your arms became too tired for the lifting of heavy kitchen trays, they found
you a new place in surgical supplies. It was from there I watched you from a high stool,
my legs dangling in your rarefied air, feet swinging in aw the banter. You like a queen
amongst your lads, entry level eager for your guidance.

7.
She tells me now, eager for stories of you, now that you are longer here to tell them.
That on the day you retired, they lined up, a guard of honour for you, singing oot, simply
the best…

8.
I still see you Nanna, standing weary at the bus stop, waiting to go home to him, waiting
for you in your top floor flat, that cup of tea ready for you, your bathies ready warming
by the three bar ring. I still see you there and feel myself speeding up to find you again.
To whisper: I’m stuck on your heart…I hang on every word you say. To whisper: I am writing
…you were here…you were here…you were here…