大象传媒

EVACUATION

Anxiety gathered me up, tagged like a parcel,
took me by train from London to Sheffield
then stayed with me, hidden
(though apt in moments of pique
to jump out and walk in step)

My hosts the Browns were old and quite
integral to that tiny terrace house,
To me, the chocolate anaglypta and tarred
once-cream walls were witnesses, observing
the parlour with its buff linoleum and russet,
rexene-covered seats on varnished chairs
which nudged a tablecloth of cinnamon chenille

Only the black, dull stove was sympathetic
making a different statement - slyly showing
bursts of cindery warmth and light
when its little door was pulled, spilling
dribs of pale ash on to a drab hearth

Facilities were basic; jug and basin or scullery tap
and, forty feet away in the middle of the garden
a sordid, stinking shack with a high, painted bench
and a threatening, stained, glazed pan
supplied by a rusted cistern

Anxiety, that night, walked with me
an insecure evacuee of five
to the locked back door where, unwilling
to wake the house to let me out I made
a further contribution to the browns

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