Spillages

How we were immediately
after skimming the clipped piece
on that pensioner who
opened the garage door
to be caught in a cascade
of their grandchildren on videotape,
his war medals muddled
in with prized fridge magnets,
tubs of birdseed and batteries
and extra bedding stacked up like
layers of sediment,
the linen’s varying
shades of soil mulched beneath folded
curtains too floral for a place
without a garden, too regal
for a house like this
in this kind of a district

laughing at how the suitcase
slid and her highrise of Radio Times
dating back to their illicit break
at the seaside bedsit,
how crushed beneath the trainset,
broken hoover and spare bulbs
her stockings crimped up
like every binliner filled
to spilling with their habits,
bric a brac and business, each
magazine subscription – yes,
yes us smiling at the pressed
flower of her inside
an encyclopedia Britanica and
saying, “So you see how we must keep
nothing of each other? Hoard none of it.
Get rid of all of me,” back to that.