Trains: straining for that last fleeting glimpse; phonecalls: mis-understandings, badly chosen words; youthful infatuations remembered in amber glow. Sadnesses. A ship pulling away with a loved one on board, that wave shrinking into a dot; an old pop song recasting a long lost memory.
Phonecall
One afternoon, a long time after, I call her.
I hear the phone’s ring
streaming through the air
of her sitting room;
flow over her writing desk:
wallets of holiday photos,
saucer of earrings,
one broken watch;
full sail across her carpet,
leaving behind
the mess of Sunday papers,
empty wine bottle, wreckage on the couch;
out into the hall,
above floor-boards,
raincoat on the banister,
umbrella fallen onto the first step;
to the landing,
boxes of books,
that standard lamp forever
on its way to the bin;
my calling her:
smoke curling in a square of sunlight;
a cloud of silver smidgens
with nowhere to go.
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