It's Still Life

A Partial Memory

I can’t remember the street name,
but there was an antique shop
on one corner, can’t recall the shop name,
and there was a stop sign, leaning,
as if fleeing, after being hit
by a feeble drunk with a baseball bat,

and the shop had broad milky windows,
air-tight and sealed by years of grime
and dead spiders who neither leapt nor spin.
Right across the street was a retread
tyre shop, whose name I can’t remember,
with those lean, preening young men
climbing around in the service bays.

The antique shop had a big brass
cash register with numbered keys,
black letters on inset pearl,
and a long mahogany handle that
when pulled released its drawer
with a violent punch. The owner’s son
was a complete shit, and truth be know,

I can’t remember his name either,
and he was caught filling his trouser
pockets with cash from the brass register,
and though I can’t recall a single name
or place, I do remember thinking that it
was the greatest of tragedy when someone
needs cheat ones own family.

for Miz Quickly’s Day 8: inspired by the Holbein painting “Unknown Young Man at his Office Desk”, and Sunday Whirl #281