I bought a bed from a charity shop,
real pine, the heavy kind,
its honeyed wood still holding
the warmth of a young man’s hands
as he carried it up the stairs,
his bride beside him, giggling,
her palm pressed to the small of his back,
while the scent of fresh paint
drifted through the empty rooms
of their first and last family home.

That night, they sank into it,
the mattress sighing beneath them,
and years later, their children
would pad in barefoot at dawn,
toes curling against the grain,
cold feet pressed to their mother’s ribs—
just to hear her gasp,
just to hear her laugh.

Decades passed—
whispered arguments,
the slow creak of forgiveness,
fevered nights with a cool cloth
laid across a brow,
the quiet weight of two people
growing old in the same nest.

Then one morning,
the last breath left home,
and the bed stood empty.
The house was sold.
Someone shouldered its story
into a truck,
donated to a dim-lit aisle,
where I found a bargain,
its whole life
folded into the frame.