Sold
You came back for your clothes and your laptop,
your music – carefully pre-filed –
a few of the more elegant things and of course
the gadgets, leaving me to clear
four storeys of what should have been
a family life.
I know our children are too young to miss
the childhood I imagined –
the garden, fruit trees, banisters to slide
safe places to hide
dreamy paddling pool days
played out under hosepipe rain,
velvet nights in rooms where once we rocked
their baby selves to sleep –
but still I mourn it with a crazy grief
so strong that somewhere
it plays on
smiling, safe and unaware.
Alison Chandler (She has an MA in Creative Writing from Birkbeck and has published several short stories. She is currently editing her first novel, Tidings, with an agent from Wales who understands.
This is her website