Carboot

They start late. Quite fitting, watching the punters drift in around noon. They waste no time. I wince as old women rummage through boxes of my underwear, much of it looking grey and tatty in the open air, in the light of day.

Some kids are playing with oddments of my poems and broken bits of prose.
Their pale mother snaps:“I said don't touch!”
I want to say:“Oh I don't mind, don't tell them off on my account.”
They were always meant for handling, for touching.

The scent of fried onions wafts from the burger van.
If they really knew me they'd have put on falafels, not hotdogs.
There'd be ginger cake and ginger wine
and large glasses of brandy.

I can smell somethng else.
I can smell my own blood
Tissue and sinew. Close. Unerving. Sickly-sweet.
I can sense the stillness, the gravity of my organs.

But people are singing. It's my friends, there they are! They're playing all the classics; they're dancing, a thousand parties, a thousand late nights. I can see them all....Hey! But no one looks round...Can't they see?

I'm watching streams of coloured thread, scarves billowing, watching Super 8 flicker, hearing peals of laughter, crackling like 45s. Fits of laughter that threatened to never end, the guffawing at bad jokes, old jokes, childish, inappropriate and naughty jokes.

The traders are doing well: teapots and postcards, paperbacks and old shoes, a miniature plastic horse, a staff carved from hazel wood, one art deco cake stand, a bundled up bunch of hangovers, several shoe boxes stuffed with photographs, a collection of tacky angel figurines, piles of scribbled-on papers, jam jars filled with beads, biscuit tins filled with colouring pencils...

The weight of my disapointment and loss are palpable.
The bloke says he'll need a hand to lift them into his van. I wonder, what does he want with them? Where will he put them? Beads of sweat spring up on his brow as he grunts and bundles them away. Gone. Thier bulk carried over the years, it's a wonder I never slipped a disc.

Oh, and look, that rickety wallpapering table strewn with fragments of old romance; the indiscretions, betrayals, shards of intoxication, starry words, shouts of exultation, love notes scribbled on the back of receipts. Squirming, I can barely stand to watch. A man in an anorack is sifting through them.
He offers a fiver for the lot.

And my chequered devotion to Christ, a crumpled old table cloth.
Unadorned and unassuming now in the weak afternoon sun. But his endless kindness made it beautiful. Made it durable. “Got yerself a bargain there luv” says the seller.
The woman smiles, folding it into her bag.

Stitched, strung and hung up like bunting are my notes; an incident of tetinus poisoning...chicken pox...molar extractions...five mercury amalgam fillings...brief flirtations with depression...15 years of cigarettes...chest infections...nine stitches to the left ear....

They sold my kiss for twenty quid.
Raffled off my addictions and dependencies.
All for a good cause. Help the homeless.

The sale's tailing off now. It's turning chilly. I'm suddenly alone. Listless clouds cover the sun.

Wait. There's a man over in the far corner, a picture frame tucked under his arm.
He wanders slowly towards the last car.
He looks tired.
“Dad!....Dad!....” My voice is tight and high.
He turns, he's looking over...squinting...
Old leaves are swept up in a sudden gust
“Dad!..D..I lov...” but my words are gone.
Shrill, taciturn and stolen by the wind.