A sequence in Ottava Rima I. On Clearing the Loft The treasure’s down. The loft is empty now and boxes occupy the lounge and hall. I rifle through the books and marvel how these mildewed pulpy fortresses were small and ineffective in defence. I know the reasons why I kept them, kept them all, but none of them has seen the light of day in years. It’s time to send them on their way. But still there has to be a treasure box: home-made soft toys leak stuffing from their guts; the thirty-year-old darkened paradox of love and distance, child and adult, cuts to the quick. And then the medals. And the shock of seeing again the trace of sea-salt rust. The documents. A man I never knew is real again; these should be kept on view. II. Going out to see the world “Too old for that,” though only ten. I tried To find the words to counter. Nothing came. And so my first LPs dispersed, denied to me, their crackly songs and dusty games now somehow sadder. Yet I never cried. Disinterested cousins made their claims by proxy, justified by youth, and these my plastic sanctuaries were shelved, deceased.
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