Hilary Sheers
Smelling the past
Her kitchen reeks of gas leaking,
Sour bacon, stale apples, weeping pee.
Once painted green and cream, now soiled
Beneath an age encrusted film
Sticky to the touch of trembling fingers
That shyly stroke a long cracked photograph.
A man of shadows, dark, unknowable,
Steams passion through a sepia gauze
Her eyes revive him
Plucking a half-forgotten tune
Of flower-scented summer memories
Of quiet caress on rough unshaven cheek
The smell of baking bread, coal tar soap
Heather mixture pipe tobacco.
Flaking kisses quiver on her lips
Her head turns, looking out and back
To long grass, apple blossom.
On her washing line
A row of flannel bloomers
Pinkly signalling surrender
Shake like these liver-spotted hands
Replacing the portrait
In its coronation tin.
Page(s) 64-65
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