Peter Salt
Philip Larkin in the Oxfam Shop
Once I’m sure it’s well-stocked I’ll step inside clattering the bell.
Silencing grim head-scarfed wives waiting at the till.
Cancer, Shelter, Age Concern; the High Street’s chock-a-block.
Now I must live on my wits, this is the kind of place I like to shop.
Museums of discarded chic, their whiff of camphor sloughing off
from rows of tweed. I trawl the tie rack, browse the suits,
inspect their mended cuffs, their collars ripe with Brylcreem.
The women at the till resume their babble. I graze
unobserved among the shirts. Skipping the synthetics,
I choose a spruce, white, cotton button-down;
the shadow of a stain (red wine?) on its breast pocket.
Perfect underneath a jacket.
What former lives these cast-offs must have led!
Job interviews, posh holidays and honeymoons with new brides.
That hat was probably the rage in 1960. Funny
how some garments simply reek of matrimony.
The shoes seem like the saddest things,
stopped dead in their tracks.
I prise a linen jacket from the rail.
Reaching down into its sleeve
my goose flesh rises, sensing
out of sight somewhere, the gape
of dead men’s wardrobes.
Page(s) 53
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