It's Still Life

Hidden Letters in a Sock Drawer

Windermere peaks 
are a perfect place to cry, I tell her.
And she is.

A calm breeze rocks our small boat,
this lake where poets and writers
come to live. And create. And die.

The air is on the edge of lifeless,

and the sun catches on Mum’s
wedding ring that hangs
loose on my sister’s finger.

It’s like Mum reminding me
that a heart is glass.

I have this peculiar thing about
wearing dead people’s jewellery.

It’s probably a Dickensian thing,

like history throwing a shadow
over itself, or discovering that

your mum kept all your letters
in her sock drawer along with
her wedding ring.

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Image is Landscape in the Lake District by John Atkinson Grimshaw. Public Domain on WikiArt. Shared with #amwriting and #apoemaday on Twitter   ©Misky 2021