Margaret Hencke
Left
This house is empty of you now.
Though full of all you’ve left behind:
Old tapes,
The unironed shirt,
Exam papers,
Toys outgrown -
(The ones we bought for you and
Some you bought for us).
You’ve left behind the hopes we had for you:
The tennis racquet,
Hockey stick,
The school reports,
Certificates in music,
That dress you never wore ....
By day the house is quiet now.
At night the dog
Creeps up the creaking stair
To find you in the bed
Unmade
But smelling still of you
And warm.
Night noises scare us now:
The ones we said were nothing
When you couldn’t sleep
Not knowing that, to comfort you,
We reassured ourselves as well.
Mud on precious carpets,
Grease on walls,
Coffee stains on stairs ....
This house is tidy now.
Alone we sit together
Suddenly aware
That your tomorrows are
Our yesterdays.
Your sudden Spring presages our Fall.
magazine list
- Features
- zines
- 10th Muse
- 14
- Acumen
- Agenda
- Ambit
- Angel Exhaust
- ARTEMISpoetry
- Atlas
- Blithe Spirit
- Borderlines
- Brando's hat
- Brittle Star
- Candelabrum
- Cannon's Mouth, The
- Chroma
- Coffee House, The
- Dream Catcher
- Equinox
- Erbacce
- Fabric
- Fire
- Floating Bear, The
- French Literary Review, The
- Frogmore Papers, The
- Global Tapestry
- Grosseteste Review
- Homeless Diamonds
- Interpreter's House, The
- Iota
- Journal, The
- Lamport Court
- London Magazine, The
- Magma
- Matchbox
- Matter
- Modern Poetry in Translation
- Monkey Kettle
- Moodswing
- Neon Highway
- New Welsh Review
- North, The
- Oasis
- Obsessed with pipework
- Orbis
- Oxford Poetry
- Painted, spoken
- Paper, The
- Pen Pusher Magazine
- Poetry Cornwall
- Poetry London
- Poetry London (1951)
- Poetry Nation
- Poetry Review, The
- Poetry Salzburg Review
- Poetry Scotland
- Poetry Wales
- Private Tutor
- Purple Patch
- Quarto
- Rain Dog
- Reach Poetry
- Review, The
- Rialto, The
- Second Aeon
- Seventh Quarry, The
- Shearsman
- Smiths Knoll
- Smoke
- South
- Staple
- Strange Faeces
- Tabla Book of New Verse, The
- Thumbscrew
- Tolling Elves
- Ugly Tree, The
- Weyfarers
- Wolf, The
- Yellow Crane, The