Poem of the Week, Week 4: I Slip into My Mother's Shoes by Jo Roach

Another poem of Poem Of The Week is I Slip Into My Mother’s Shoes by Jo Roach. With VE day approaching and the language used to describe lockdown in the media, this poem rouses a relatable mood -

I Slip into My Mother’s Shoes

and stand at the bench in the munitions factory

oil pours over my hands

the air thick with the choking smell of sulphur

my skin stained canary yellow

the deafening din of the machines

the clatter of metal trolleys

I run into the Anderson shelter

terrified by twelve seconds silence of doodlebugs

have all my teeth removed at the Angel Dentist’s

ready for an ill-fitting set of false teeth

take dictation in Pitman’s shorthand

type sixty words a minute in an office in Charterhouse Square

catch a Green Line bus for a day out

lift my skirt and go for a paddle by Southend Pier

dance down Oxford Street on VE Day

with men in coarse demob suits

I’m wearing an engagement ring

a ruby with diamond chips

I wait in the church and he doesn’t come

I go back to my baby son and one room.

Jo Roach born and brought up and still lives in the part of London where she can trace her mother’s family roots back to 1650. Jo’s father was from Ireland, a connection to place which exerts a strong influence on her poetry.