Heirlooms
Will Snelling
A circling breeze is tapping against the pane,
as though it wants to see if someone’s home.
When we took the paintings from each room,
the house dissolved in our minds, but came back again
this morning when I used your coffee pot
now sat on my stove, its ritual hiss and splutter
conjuring journeys north, the toast and butter
laid out, the late evening light in June, the short
December days of dog-walks, grey but pretty.
I found a Lewis Carrol from when you were small,
dated nineteen-forty, an inkling of you
before you existed for me, just like your city,
before it shrank to your bed, your room, your hall.
The things you left make you bright with the world you knew.
Will Snelling is from St Leonards on Sea and lives in Bristol, where he will hopefully be starting an MPhil in English in January. His poems have appeared on the Young Poets Network and Helicon magazine, and his poetry and journalism can be found at willsnelling.wordpress.com