Poetry Magazines - The best collection of poetry magazines online - Simon Armitage

Poetry Library Southbank Centre - The Poetry Library housing the Arts Council Collection at Southbank Centre

« Previous item
Contents of this issue
Next item »

Fiona Sinclair

print this page

Found

Two pitches down people pick over a life.
Amongst crockery , a wooden box on cork screw legs,
I stroke its mahogany flanks.
Inside baby blue lining is glimpsed through
a ramshackle nest of sewing materials.
My trespassing hands are pricked by booby trapped pins,
churned contents release charity shop smell,
nevertheless £15 and it’s in the back of my car.
Back home, I turn with curator care
the pages of her log
Knitting needles set 4, brown 978
ciphers baffling as a spy’s field book.
Goose bumps as her tiny sleeping beauty thimble
is slipped onto the tip of my little finger.
Bottom of the box, her hoard
of Woman’s Realm patterns and embroidery cloths.
One bearing a few links of colour and a needle lanced,
when she was called away.
Following Sunday, the materials are a lucky dip .
A brake is applied on a buggy
‘Stop pestering and let me look’
The woman speed reads the contents
‘How much for the lot?’
She carries the container off on her infant’s lap ,
planning snatched trysts with her needlework
when the kids are asleep.
In my bedroom, pens, paper and thesaurus ,
begin to make themselves at home in Mrs Taylor’s sewing box.

Page(s) 48

Back to top