Paula Meehan

Question 1

My mother would..

Answer 1

..spare me sixpence

Question 2

Hurry up now and..

Answer 2

don’t be talking to strange men on the way

Question 3

On the stairs where..

Answer 3

..the bulb had blown

Question 4

the winkles would be..

Answer 4

..wet ad glisten like little night skies themselves

Question 5

I’d hold..

Answer 5

..the tanner tight

Question 6

I’d wave..

Answer 6

up to women at sills or those lingering in doorways

Question 7

When the bar doors..

Answer 7

..swung open they’d leak the smell of men together with drink

Question 8

The sweetest..

Answer 8

..extra winkle that brought the sea to me

Question 9

bulging fat with winkles..

Answer 9

..proudly home like torches

Question 10

The sting of her hand..

Answer 10

..across my face in one of our wars when we had grown bitter and apart

Question 11

We might have made a new start..

Answer 11

..as women without tags like mother, wife, sister, daughter

Question 12

the flat to us,..

Answer 12

..her brood banished to the bedroom

Question 13

Did her mirror..

Answer 13

..tell what mine tells me?

Question 14

knowing..

Answer 14

..history has brought her to her knees

Question 15

in ice cold water..

Answer 15

..he scrubbed every spick of lipstick and mascara off my face

Question 16

We’d grow solemn as planets..

Answer 16

in an intricate orbit about her

Question 17

To me it..

Answer 17

..spelt poverty the stigma of the second hand.

Question 18

it would carry me..

Answer 18

..to Zanzibar, Bombay, the Land of the Ethiops

Question 19

The world beyond her..

Answer 19

..already a dream, already lost. She’s eight months pregnant. Her last child.

Question 20

The favoured sensible shades..

Answer 20

..I dreamt a robe of colour so pure it became a word

Question 21

If I swam like a kite too high..

Answer 21

..she’d reel me firmly home, she’d land me at her knees