Suburban Decay

Pears in the fruit bowl; rotten,

Provide refuge for generations of detritivores.

Fathers then daughters, mothers then sons.

Yet still, you stand alone.

The clocks have stopped,

Windows provide passage,

For tendrils of whistling wind,

Courtesy of some anti-sentimentalist teenagers,

Least favourite brick.

The rose, under which lies,

The cat you got when you were six,

Succumbed to a cold snap last winter.

Not as immortal as you’d thought.

Your Mothers voice is now an echo,

Behind demented ramblings of a stranger,

Who just happens to look like her.

Your Father is in the ground,

Your Sister moved away.

He finally faced his sins,

She couldn’t face the hole he left.

Sometimes,

In our brief glimmers of kinship,

She’ll say,

‘You look just like him,

But you couldn’t understand him if you tried’.

You visit his grave on birthdays and Christmas.

You never tell her.

So, you stand in what once was,

Engulfed in crestfallen rain,

Once there was love here,

Now only pain.

-Rob Padfield