Your study

Magazines and newspapers

neatly piled in date order

envelopes sliced open

with a knife from

Spain.

Sharpened pencils

at the ready

in regimented lines

like the toy soldiers

you played with as a boy.

A little lacquer bowl

with shells and buttons

and a stone from the garden

not this garden, the old one

the one with the lawn that was yours to mow.

Where you raked leaves

in your old trilby hat and Burberry coat

Came in as it was getting dark

smelling of woodsmoke

and damp leaves

Your red notebook is here

spidery sums dancing across the pages

I see you last paid the milk bill

on the 15^th February

the week before you died.