Proserpina opens his fridge
Her soft tug releases
an odour. The light flicks on…
Along the top rack lies
a tube of puree, twisted, missing
its lid. A streaky rasher dangles
between the rails. What
was once lettuce drips
onto a ripped-open empty package
and a bruised wedge of cheese.
Stuck in the bars, dried halves
of onion, rings shrunk apart, lose
their skins over a closed container holding
nothing but sprouting spuds and an egg-box,
its sole sticky occupant cracked…
She’s already eaten his meal, but now pulls free
the Eiffel Tower souvenir magnet and leaves
beneath it a brief note in lipstick
on a white unfolded serviette.
Jill Sharp‘s poems have recently appeared in the final edition of Fourteen, Mslexia, Poems in the Waiting Room and The Listening Walk, an anthology from Bath Cafe Poets. She teaches for the OU and lives in Swindon.