Before You Walk Away...

Look back at the house
we scrimped and saved for.
The curtains you made
by hand – the ones
with the crooked seams.
Straight lines – not
your forté. White spaces
glaring back at me
from the wall where
your paintings had been.

Your ‘still-life’...
with its bunch of grapes,
and apples in a wonky bowl
you swore blind was meant
to be shaped that way.
As I said before, ‘precision’
never your thing.
Our small back yard,
where that ‘surprise
bicycle’ for your birthday
stood propped against the wall.

The summerhouse we built
that blew down in a gale
we re-glazed, and put up again,
then made it ‘a first’
on the pine-clad floor.
Said, ‘We couldn’t care less
what the neighbours thought’...
except you always coloured up
when you met the folk
next door.

Our bedroom where we prayed
as one for our daughter;
pissing in the wind, but
we knew it was a long-shot.
The shower, just big enough
for two, we washed away
our pain...until tomorrow.
The lounge – the G Plan settee,
that had seen better days...
where we’d sit – talk about
our future; where, last night,
you dropped a bombshell. Blew
our world apart.