Mother and the Mortgage
Mother is like a nervous yet overly positive mouse
and since I moved away,
it’s just been her and my sister in that huge, half-empty house.
They play arts and crafts most days
and my sister sleeps away afternoons like a cat on the bed,
listening to every word my mother says to the phone.
Their clothes are visibly mended
as mother makes ends meet,
trailing bits of thread.
It’s the only house in the fox-hunting street
that harbours unemployed
and the only house devoid of heat.
My sister, mother, me and the mortgage
are all at home today
and we are all eating porridge.
Samuel W. James is a writer form Yorkshire who uses unambiguous images/narratives to discuss theory like post-structuralism and Marxism. His narratives come from individual experiences of poverty, factory-work, office-work, hitchhiking, homelessness, studying, and successful (and catastrophically unsuccessful) personal relationships.