Reason

I'm not going to limit myself because people won't accept the fact that I can do something else.
Dolly Parton.

Rhyme

Memento
Debbie Cannon

It was a shock to find it here, framed
in the bathroom mirror – my mother’s face.
Rising warm from bathwater spray and laced
with foam and mist: mine but not the same.
How did it get there? When did it become my own?
Did smooth skin crease and thicken, did cartilage subside
to give me this proboscis, her line-tired eyes?
I hadn’t noticed as I slid inside her skin.
I wonder, after all these years of painful
severance, can we live once again as one
resisting body? Will my mouth speak in her tone,
her eyebrows frown if I should break a rule?
My hand goes out to touch it, in watery, cold glass.
This face: my first idea of beauty, mine at last.

This stunning and profoundly moving poem deservedly won Debbie Cannon the Dorothy Dunbar poetry trophy
at the Scottish Association of Writers' annual conference in 2007.

Debbie has just finished writing one novel and has started another while continuing also to write poetry. Find out more about her on www.myspace.com/debscannon.

Reason and Rhyme in 2006
Reason and Rhyme in 2005
Reason and Rhyme in 2004
Reason and Rhyme in 2003