Inside a chipped basin of kitchen framed confusion,
a necklace of aunts stoop to adore the younger shapes.
Leaning onto wizened sticks, peering across their pasts.
This is a house to dissolve into,
on a cavernous village Sunday.
Interlaced lives linger in cold bedrooms,
Straining across decades and unused guest rooms.
Ancestors have filled up the lounge with full stops
and cancelled tears.
The cats departed as uncles were annulled.
Tea-stained separations stalk this absent-minded house.
—Published 25th of May 2019
About Foy Timms
Foy Timms is a poet and writer based in Reading, Berkshire. She is preoccupied with themes such as social exclusion, alienation, memory, fleeting ‘connections’, departure, solitude, British towns and villages and the sociopolitical dimensions of living spaces. She also works as a fundraiser in the Third Sector.