Hephzibah

Hélène Demetriades

A blind-spot mirror flashes from the mountain 

bend, a giant dentist’s tool probing the dark 

pink mouth of my mother’s tartan Renault 4. 

In the linen basket of her mind

her husband’s order not to drive us any distance. 

I daydream about bouncing on a grainy moon

gravity-free, while she steers us 

across the Swiss French/German border 

to Saanen church. Programmes flutter 

to The Four Seasons, oak pews grow

quiet. Yehudi Menuhin is playing 

in the chancel. Back home, Mum christens 

the hamster Hephzibah—meaning my delight

in her. She educates us 

through the naming of our pets. 

I grasp at her fire-fly joy

with a child’s fingers, try to trap it

in my small fist, scratch at night’s armpit.

* Hephzibah was Yehudi Menuhin’s sister and piano accompanist.  

HÉLÈNE DEMETRIADES’ debut collection The Plumb Line was published by Hedgehog Press in 2022. She was longlisted in The National, shortlisted in The Bridport, and highly commended in the International Fool For Poetry Chapbook competition, 2023. She won The Silver Wyvern, Poetry On The Lake, 2022. She lives in South Devon.