Ingrained Stains

Ingrained Stains

She moulds cigarettes in bent
fingers with the dexterity
of a teen, scratches her head

and talks through every silence.

A matriarch,
not coifed nor powdered,
for perfume no longer smothers

the grain stains of her smoke,
nor does it colour
the black and white regions

in the cliff-edged reasoning
of her mind. Her sun-cracked
hands detract from the mind

that pulled off a forty year lie
and eyes dart as she waits
to discover how we judge
her mistake. I struggle

to see a landscape uncoloured
and bare of shadows, but I feel

the fault of deception does not rest
with my newly-discovered half sister.