We knew full well it was a risk
to go back there. Break in.
No one would guess, you said. The old place
still vacant after all, porch light left on
as if to measure nightfall.
And knowing how to reach its bolt
the gate, hinge-loose, squeaked open.
A kind of mock welcome.
The grass gone soft where no feet passed,
trees grown crooked, or perhaps just older.
Inside the shed the air was sour
with smell of stored apples, long eaten.
Half-clenched, one soil-caked glove
lies on the workbench, a sleeping fist.
An unlaced pair of boots, gaping.
Already junk mail curls in the hall,
like unburnt leaves at a bonfire’s edge.
Cold tea stains cling to that cracked mug
left on the kitchen sill.
Dust collects. Our cast-off skin.
Briskly tucked in a mantelpiece
your last scrawled shopping list.
What it said, I didn’t ask – the silence was too full.
We touched nothing.
When dawn’s rain came, we swallowed
and were gone.
vi. 2025
painting: 'A Pair of Shoes' - Vincent van Gogh (1886)