Creative Coping

The house was built in 1864 or thereabouts

With bricks and mortar

In the usual way,

Set down on the street

‘Tween two just the

Same.

No, I lie. Next

Door was a shop,

Greyed out now, modern

Style, frosted windows, the works.

Behind doors to the house of

A family, bent by

Chance into odd-

Shaped rooms, tombs

For the spirits of eras

Passed, mingling now and

Then with the plates on

The rack or a glass in the

Cupboard, no harm meant.

After twenty five years

No surprise at a flying saucepan.

The family lived in the house,

Part of it, kin to it,

Whatever its freight.

Besides, after twenty five years, they

Had their own ghosts as guests,

Those former selves in former

Times living on,

Resonating in overlapping lines.

The cello practice, the barking

Dog, the sleeping dog,

The trampoline, the one that

Broke, the roller blades,

The skipping rope.

The time when budgies tweeted

In the kitchen

And Ma cooked at 6 for me

And 8 for him, again.

The time when garden’s shade

Was less and next door neighbour

Had a cat called…called….

Times gone but still present

In the ether, round the stairs, up the blocked chimney,

Or the skylight, then,

Down, over mossy steps

And at the back door, again,

With a ratataptap, like a

Ghost..

No, it must be Jack

The new next door neighbour’s

Cat.