"The smooth hands of the village woman": A century and more in Denise Levertov's "Inheritance"

 

In Denise Levertov's poem, "Inheritance", from her 1989 collection "A Door in the Hive", the poet remembers a story told by her grandmother: "Even in her nineties she recalled / the smooth hands of the village woman / who sometimes came from down the street / and gently with the softest / of soft old flannel, / soaped and rinsed and dried / her grubby face [...]." The grandmother's story is handed down to her granddaughter, who, now herself is in her mid-sixties, remembers something that happened over a century ago, and captures it in a poem that you can read now, over thirty years after the publication of the poem. (Andrew Shields, #111words, 21 January 2023)

 

Inheritance

Denise Levertov, "A Door in the Hive" (1989)

 

Even in her nineties she recalled

the smooth hands of the village woman

who sometimes came from down the street

and gently with the softest

of soft old flannel,

soaped and rinsed and dried

her grubby face, while upstairs

the stepmother lay abed bitterly sleeping,

the uncorked opiate bottle

wafting out sticky sweetness

into a noontime dusk.

Those hands, that slow refreshment,

were so kind , I too,

another lifetime beyond them,

shall carry towards my death

their memory,

grateful, and longing

once again to feel them soothe me.