The Leather Suitcase

It could have been left almost anywhere
but it was abandoned in a single room
of a B&B. In Weston-super-Mare.

A leather suitcase, battered and old,
plastered with sticky labels of hotels,
from the Emerald Isle to the Cotswold:

the Grand Hotel, the Ritz, Albergo Italia,
the Savoy, the Metropole and La Maison
plus the Acapulco Hilton - inter alia.

They spoke of an itinerant millionaire
much travelled who was going places;
full of sophistication, possibly debonair.

But, after looking at it, I knew for cert
that this suitcase was to me familiar
and that it had belonged to Uncle Bert.

He never went abroad and it was rare
for him to even entertain the thought
of straying far from Weston-super-Mare.

As I saw that valise battered and old
I knew how first impressions can deceive
and that all that glitters is not gold.

© Luigi Pagano 2009