Cupboard Love

Gradually we deplete the larder
of all the stock you left us.
Jars are emptied and recycled one by one,
tawdry packets replace them, sometimes we try
a new brand, but slowly
the spaces between them grow. Even the arrangement
changes: ideas are always the last thing to go.

I like the economy of this tidy larder.
I like things to be used and used up and done with.

What are we to do with your vast untidy love
that fills every room and corner of this house like the sea
in a sinking ship and can never be exhausted?


Iain Lonie
The poet's wife died suddenly, and he and their child continued
to live in the same house. This must be what it feels like.

(A footnote to the last three lines: the poet was a sailor.....)


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