Jason Lee UK Dark Room Remember her shuffling minus a stick Guided only by her Greco-Judaeo nose Knowing the workshop next door intimately By the vapour of his muriatic smells The dark hallway by the perfume of jasmines Your grandparents’ bedroom by the whiff of wood Alcohol they both rubbed over their bodies Before they went to sleep and Aunty Olive’s Room by the odour of oil lamps Slim and silent with the skin of wasted lilies Mother-of-pearl hair hanging to her waist green Eyes that changed their light to match her mind She was almost always alone singing to herself You could not resist going into her room But like a blind man you never found her Years later home from school you told mother Of your adventures and her sister’s movements She replied she had died six days before your birth
Copyright, Jason Lee. |