Tapestry

Warrior Turk with whipping cape,
Determined stare through dusty frame
And an oddly stunted horse,
One profiled eye glaring,
Daring me to laugh at its spindly ankles
And biliously coiffed tail.

Driven from your home
Where your bare landscape
Of pillared temples and dead hills
Floated above my grandmother's mantelpiece.
You galloped noiselessly
From the ancient ticking of the casement clock
Towards window-ledge violets
And the pristine vegetable plot.
A constant host on those Sunday visits,
The spiced scent of sherry and new coal fire
Curling through the tense air.
My mother's florid insecurity,
And grandmother's polite contempt
Collided
Where my father squeezed out jollity
And yearned for peace.

When she died you came here,
Jaded refugee from a defunct country.
Where is your Ottoman splendour?
Have your colours faded
To these insipid browns?
Or were they always so -
Crafted by a sepia Victorian,
'Jane Ardery, 1884',
Whom you also survived.

Propped up now in my cold childhood bedroom
Your glass reflects the window snapshot
Of this moment.
Your gaze ruthless as ever
As you plunge through time.