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Susan Hamlyn

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Dolls' House

for Alan

Ignoring the dolls, I concentrate
upon the wall-papers. The patterns
seem too large for the rooms.
Large, green prints, complex wine stains,
yellow floribunda.
Furniture, too, is big,
needs to be negotiated.
Windows long since gave up being windows,
looking out only on the blankness of space
inside other people’s rooms.

Perhaps you can see the dolls’ house
inside a pleasant room
on the ground floor of a well-maintained
and solid home, behind an acceptably unkempt garden,
on a quiet street in a leafy part of town,
in the same country which contains, far to the north,
moorland, fells and curlew cries.

My view is more confined.
I see wall-papers,
heavy, slightly glazing curtains,
dark corners, little pots and vases,
the mantelpiece, a dully glinting fire,
secure behind the authentic brick facade,
fastened with its tiny hump-backed hook.

 

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