Susan Saunders
Custodian
No-one warned me how it would feel.
How the worn boots behind the kitchen door
could insinuate loss as if it were a gift.
In his room the walls wear a blank
neutrality scoured free of smears,
denuded of Bob Marley, Animal Rights.
This house is a cold, comfortless museum,
its spaces filled with gagged lyrics, rough
drafts of despairing sonnets, and at each dusk
not knowing what I’m looking for
I perform the ritual, sifting through all
his familiar things - football club trophies,
badges, cue chalks, school trip photos
of a winter in Moscow, and love letters
from a girl he wept for, unconsolably,
at fifteen. So now even nature
won’t quite conjugate - the sun
no longer tied to his string -
dark skies still gathering -
black stumps instead of tulips.
Page(s) 26
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