belonging

I opened the drawer and saw a well organised pile of the books I read as a child along with my earliest school notebooks. These, I imagined, my grandfather or grandmother had carefully kept. I take the books and notebooks and flick through them, drawings and words and perfect handwriting. I remember reading or being read to in my bedroom. I also remember lots of homework and having to do it perfectly. And after all the years of schooling and work and my parents' divorce and getting married and writing books and the stresses and strains of day to day living these books and notebooks in perfect condition remind me of where I began. I take some time over them, truly glad that we are reacquainted, then arrange them back, exactly as I found them, because that's where they belong, even if I am not there by their side.

bloody times

summer blood
drips
sunlight floods
the curtain
drawn
putrid
air
that
bloody
smell

who can succeed
sink into
an
intelligence
wisecrack
apology
facing
a striking
white screen
framed
by
death