Lexicon
A woman walked in,
black hair rolled like a smile
above her neck.
Auntie Gwen, what’s the Welsh for stop it?
She shovelled more coal onto the fire.
Paid, she told me, Paid.
But when I said Paid!
the younger girl
just tickled my ribs harder.
Bobbles swung wildly
on the maroon tablecloth.
Chenille I’d heard it called.
A lustre vase with crystal drops
tinkled. The piano in the corner
stayed piano.
On a chaise longue
in a Welsh front kitchen
I laughed in lingua franca.
Great! I love the idea of the human emotions as a universal language. I wonder if the ‘smile’ in S1 could be replaced by a another foreign word. I assume that the black hair is at the back of the head. Perhaps, ‘above the nape of her neck’?