Keith Chandler
The house we didn't buy
I often pass it - that house we didn’t buy:
a five-barred gate, a tar-washed gable end,
a flush of roses swagged nostalgically
over one window. Sometimes a cat
sits bib-faced, smugly proprietorial
in the porch. Sometimes children’s toys
are set out on the lawn - a tent, a slide.
Summer weekends a slew of cars, a waft
of barbecue, hot music ... ‘Open House’.
But not for us. One year the grass grew long,
the curtains stayed undrawn. A trip abroad?
We’ll never know. Driving myself to work
I re-enact how we were shown around -
each room more elegant than the last,
curtains billowing inward from a garden
that promised views of further views beyond -
and think again: why not? Was it luck? Or fate?
We settled somewhere else - a different life
that (who knows?) might have better suited us,
that someone else might covet. At night I pass
its hunkered homeliness, its lighted squares.
I like to catch the dumbshow of their lives
through the kitchen glass, chiaroscuro of TV
dappling the ceiling. Someone puts out the cat.
A woman laughs. And then the lights go out.
a five-barred gate, a tar-washed gable end,
a flush of roses swagged nostalgically
over one window. Sometimes a cat
sits bib-faced, smugly proprietorial
in the porch. Sometimes children’s toys
are set out on the lawn - a tent, a slide.
Summer weekends a slew of cars, a waft
of barbecue, hot music ... ‘Open House’.
But not for us. One year the grass grew long,
the curtains stayed undrawn. A trip abroad?
We’ll never know. Driving myself to work
I re-enact how we were shown around -
each room more elegant than the last,
curtains billowing inward from a garden
that promised views of further views beyond -
and think again: why not? Was it luck? Or fate?
We settled somewhere else - a different life
that (who knows?) might have better suited us,
that someone else might covet. At night I pass
its hunkered homeliness, its lighted squares.
I like to catch the dumbshow of their lives
through the kitchen glass, chiaroscuro of TV
dappling the ceiling. Someone puts out the cat.
A woman laughs. And then the lights go out.
Page(s) 52
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