The Old House By The Sea

I did not want the haughty woman dressed in yellow

to buy the old house by the sea.

Her peony hands measuring the walls,

her partner finding space for Toby jugs and imported skins,

reduced me to a secret onlooker

observing a once great city awaiting its plunder.

Oh no. The old house was not for them.

We shared too many precious moments

for someone to paper so completely.

Those last nights I spent alone – everything

shipped north or sheeted down -

I discovered our initials engraved

in the plaster of the once bricked-up flue,

a prank we played one rainy afternoon

to immortalise our love.

I stroked each letter, re-imagined the deep grooves

as beauteous scars of love,

felt grains of dry cement fill my nails.

I must have pressed too hard because old

plaster came loose, fell away, shattering

dusty fragments at my feet, revealing not only

dull brick but the initials of other lovers far removed:

LK & MM; AS and Percival – the last encased

in a floral heart.

Like us they once lay here, heard calm swell

turn to rage, thought love was ever-constant

forgetting it cracks and chafes, falls to end.

So when the young couple came to build

a new life I knew the old house was for them.

She slightly taller, he temperate and loyal -

no longer a distant onlooker, no longer a city

ripe for plunder -

their hesitant laughter breathed life into silent, empty rooms.

In time the heat of the flue and

the cold of the cellar will flake our memories to dust.

Let these lovers rest a while

and warm themselves.