On the day we move house
I am in someone’s old bedroom,
our new bedroom.

The walls need work,
panoply of circles
where picture frames once hung,
where a shelf may have slept.

I think of the books a wife
may have read, propped up in bed
in this place, her husband also reading,
the lamp-light pouring over their skins.

They had *** in this room,
people before them too,
long ago residents.
The walls have seen, have heard
it all.

A green squiggle next to the door.
A name? Or an age? Hard to tell.
The remnants of faces moved on,
our footsteps the next to grace
this sanctuary of sleep.

A duo of pots, three cylinders,
wrapped. We shall make a start soon.
The bed will go here,
wardrobe by the window.
A shout rockets up the stairs.
The wife’s making a brew.