Zooming the Cousins
By: Claire Collison
About The Poem
The Poem
Someone says, if there are more than can share a pizza there’s too many, so we discuss pizza, because food is in our blood. And sewing—the nap of velvet draws a consensus (once, their mum said I’d put up my hem with a trowel.) My youngest cousin is showing us her dog now; screenful of licking and fur; and I remember us driving to meet her the night she was born: how she came out of my auntie with long nails. My sister is on mute, but we are up to speed, although her wallpaper is new. We are game show gridded, with our choices and soft furnishings, and discerning what that means: we have slept in rows in shared beds, but not recently. The screen simplifies us, and I compare the lines of our brows to see what the men added to our matriarchal stock. And there’s so much good will and curiosity, and of course a yearning for our mothers who connected us. I remember their pine kitchen table with two long benches, the way my auntie could draw a rose, how the water tasted in their taps.
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