Golden Syrup

She sees the label on a shelf
in the Stockbridge Country Store
and finds the sealed tin. Her hand

feels the years change to liquid,
so what has been frozen flows
through her fingers.

Yet she can’t grasp what wells in her
and pours over. South Africa
is so many years back, and the past

spins away like a wheel circling
in cold light. “Adrianne,” she says,
in the dim swirl of memory,

“I found it.” Her daughter smiles
at her mother’s pleasure, at her happiness.
She sees the years peel back like old shingle

weathered by sun and wind, each with its dark-
or light-winged narrative that opens
with the turn of a lid.

I can see how bright her mother’s face is
and how muted her voice and I want to listen
to each word she speaks, each syllable her lips reach for.

I know she has been saving up for this moment,
for this burnt field of seconds that have turned golden
because, finally, she can be heard.