Number 504

in

You left me your secrets
in a dusty box,
hidden in the eaves 
of the garage.
You were unknown to me, 
but I imagine you, bent over,
shuffling to the kitchen,
your dressing gown tied loosely
at your waist.

The milk sits solitary on the refrigerator shelf,
already sour.
I see you, sitting alone 
in your customary chair,
waiting out the long 
afternoon;
watching memories 
dancing on the walls in 
empty frames.

Your arthritic, yellowed hands reach
for yet another cigarette.
The air hangs heavy.
Cinders drop on the frayed carpet by
your cold and dirty toes.

The Call

in

I’m glad you rang.
That we talked in bright 
and sunlit tones,
exchanging our 
How are yous? 
and 
What’s the news?
No-one would guess what
lies beneath our
cheer.
The weight of silence 
feels stone-cold.
We skip perilously by and
do not stop.
You really do not know,
no-one calls me Sally 
anymore.

She Glows Golden

in

She glows golden.
This honeyed girl 
of puckish charm
is everything
of woman
yet
small-made.
Like a 
whorl of nested twigs,
she is a delicacy
of intention.
Defined with purpose
yet still forming,
she is still
not quite ready. 

 

The Weight of the Thing

in

Tell me then
why did we not share this news?
To be found is to be known
so 
tell me.
Why did we bury it in the backyard
with the forget-me-nots 
and the potatoes?

With measured step
I trod lightly,
lest the bracken’s crackle 
herald my ungainly arrival. 

I may yet
disappear.

And though the old pear 
may rot on the sill,
each sapling carries within it
its own 
inevitability.

The soil of regret may
nourish still.