First and Second Draught

The house is always cold in the evening time,
and all that moves are the billowing curtains.
I trace my hand through them and feel
soft fingertips touching back, grasping and
reaching for a familiar touch. There
is a faint smell in the air that brings back

feelings of old, and memories flood back
to my cobwebbed mind, erasing time.
The roof was never repaired and their
rain rests sympathy on the curtains,
helping them grow taller, stronger and
fruitful. I laugh at thinking I would always feel

the same way, that I would always feel
the warmth at night, because at the back
of the room the radiator always coughed and
spluttered. The bedroom is stuck in time.
Not even the deep crimson curtains
can change the past or future in there.

I took all the mirrors down because they're
showing what is already known and I feel
that I have seen enough of these curtains
of skin, that hide the stage tucked in the back
of the recesses of my mind. Still, time
marches on, despite rooms without doors and

corridors yet to be traced. I haven't collected and
collated my last set of silk drapes, and there
are keys to be found in their own time.
So I shall paint the walls and fix the roof, feel
the cold no more, and take the old fittings back,
and find some new furniture or even more curtains,

(My very own private collection of curtains).
Of course there will still be rooms without doors and
secret cubbyholes, snook into nooks at the back
of the house. It's sad to say but I will miss their
rain, and the way the water would feel
on my hands, but for that there is no more time.

But don't look back at time,
just look at the curtains
and then feel them.