I

Ada Mary Harris/Bilsborrow

Rummaged around for confirmations,

found them everywhere.

Grief was her devotion and her bigotry.

Terrible how selves are fashioned by opposing,

how feuds make curses make families,

accident breeds accusation, blame bangs on forever.

A son, her youngest, the one she called Doodie,

blown away in the dust of a desert,

for forty years determined our weather.

II

Florrie Ankers/Simpson

Names connect and disconnect, airy nothings

given local habitation;

disconnect and reconnect, stay in place or go

wandering maps

in search of something, usually home or womb.

With Florrie it's the old story –

below-stairs master/maidservant hanky-panky

that denies us

proper name: the words I play with never graduate

to a stabilising noun,

stay always verb.