FOR MRS NORRIS AGED 91

Who Defied Her Family,
Blew All Her Money on a Sea-Cruise to Hawaii,
and Died After Partying Non-Stop The First Night Out

Here's to Mrs. Norris!
The ink on plans and charts still wet with anticipation,
a hornpipe of exotic place names dancing on her tongue,
and a few salty asides scouring the frowns of younger relatives,
pursed lips buttoned about doubt and disapproval,
their scheme for the nursing home,
the sexless nightie and the carpet slippers
wrecked on the rocks of her elderly intransigence.
No barnacles on that old lady!
All such sea wrack left behind,
she rollicked up the gangplank of her own craftiness,
a Mickey of bad scotch stuck into her bar,
wearing loud shorts and cheap jewellery that clunked,
bellowing a rude song about sailors and loose women,
and planning to blow her pension on bingo ...
Mrs. Norris, leaving on an oceanic sky
and a fleet of stars
with the tide high
and her spirit high
breaking up and out
of outworn flesh and rising
like a lean, clean, silver fish,
to seize the dragonfly
of a new morning.

Jancis Andrews
British Columbia