Swapsies

Your favourite jumper is draped,
Languishing on the back of my chair
The tattered sleeves unmoving,
Its snot stains ever-present
And the colour clashing
As always
With your imagined outfit.

The window looks on,
Sheets of sunlight
In heavy layers over the thing.
I’ve sent you socks,
Jumpers of my own;
You always give them straight back, washed
But never folded.

It still smells of you.
I hold your shirt hostage,
Hoping you’ll forget again,
So I can keep this cosy reminder –
This comfortable, blue cotton, button-up memory.

Second Hand

I had a gentleman talk me through:
His cousin, the successful pilot –
His brother, the eternally youthful –
His mother, the perpetually bored –
The father, mysteriously skipped.

He told me of the car they should never have sold,
The family capers and their consequences,
His wife’s entrance into his life, and her exit,
The cat who was constantly pregnant,
His children, who’d never matured.

And I told him I’d inherit his grandson,
But I’d take good care of him,
So you’ve got nothing to worry about anymore –
Our dogs will be named after both boys.