She could always tear my heart apart.
Mostly with unsubstantiated anger –
Followed by deliberately executed silence:
Coventry became my second home.

At eighty-something a heated argument mushroomed
In accepting blame without accepting anything
She excused herself with these immortal words,
“Ha! I’m way too old to change, now!”

Even then they were spat with venom,
Eyes expressed wide in open challenge.
There was no real point in retaliating:
I’d long before learned a son can never win.