Grandmother’s Limbs – by Svetlana Sterlin

ISLAND | ONLINE ONLY

Reaching for the highest shelf

in the store. The only one not scraped clean

in my mother’s home city.

My cousin contemplated [           ] last year

before any of this started.

Бабушка had died and how could I

console my mother in any other way

than to help her flick through photos

that dissolved between our fingers?

Мама’s legs couldn’t carry her home

but she climbed ten storeys to see

a consul in a Brisbane city high rise

and apply for a passport to be with

her sister, to sort Бабушка’s affairs.

I guess they’ve stopped feuding, what with

Everything That’s Been Going On.

A phrase we’ve turned into habit,

moulding the words like slime,

malleable, like the limbs

scattered across the broken pavement

of Бабушка’s neighbouring country.

Months elapse before Мама’s passport

is approved. Borders open

and a war ensues. Back home

petrol prices skyrocket. Our city floods

and soon, those of us who can will resort

to using our limbs to carry us, swim us

from place to place. I almost made this

another poem about swimming

but words aren’t always poems.

Somewhere, someone folds

my grandmother’s limbs

across her body.

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Image: Sincerely Media - Unsplash

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