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For Sale
The unused double-decker
freewheels down the village hill,
the engine's pitch descending.
Boxes fill the living-room,
yellow plants, old post;
a bird bangs into the window
every few months.
My mum would at least
have put on her sheepskin
coat and scrubbed the blood
and feathers off
with a J-cloth.
She would fry an egg,
boil up some tea and
sit in a foldout chair
in her sheepskin coat
reading Pablo Neruda,
her leather boots
crunching the snow.
She left years ago;
now my dad sorts out
the shopping-bags
of maps
and monochrome
holiday photographs
of a great-grandfather
sitting in his wicker chair
in his three-piece suit
on the beach at Cadzand.*
*a popular bathing resort in Holland in the thirties, now in decline. My ancestry is Dutch.
__________________
"The greatest in life lies not through never falling, but rising every time we fall." - Nelson Mandela
Last edited by AndyH : 11-18-2005 at 12:20 PM.
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