Claire Everett

Clocking off

days when it feels

like I don’t exist . . .

 looking back

 across new fallen snow

 to check for boot prints



How, when the snow has melted, the grass seems so much greener. How the skin beneath a scab is firm and pink, but lurking beneath your wedding band it is white and a little shrunken, like the flesh of a clingstone peach, past its best. How, when you move the furniture around, patches of carpet spring up like velvet moss. And you don’t notice how loudly the clock is ticking, until it stops.



frond shadows

cast by the potted palms

stir in a breeze . . .

the cleaning lady smiles

when he remembers her name



The way forty years of sunlight will stencil a ghost-runner of antique lace on that dark oak sideboard. How, long accustomed to make do and mend, you'll be quietly stitching yesterday’s silver lining or letting down the hem of yet another thing all but outgrown, when suddenly, you'll find yourself confronted with the raw edge of your life’s true colours.



boarding a train

perhaps hitching a ride

dandelion seed

I, too, would leave on a whim

 . . . follow my bliss