29 OCTOBER 2024, ST HELIER
- May 29
- 1 min read
By Hetta Jones
6.33 am.
It’s raining. So softly, I cannot see or hear it, except where it pools on corkwood. Perches over the town. Air still, full of the thrum of dual carriageway, and nothing else. Later, people will rattle empty bins over gravel. Still air here, busy roads there. It isn’t cold. It isn’t warm. It just is. To the left, Jane Sandeman Court. Celebratory in purple-splodged scaffolding. I envisage my tense muscles embellished with purple splodges of pain.
It is your birthday.
18 years now without one.
I’m glad you died when I remained
Quiescent potentiality – just coming to life.
Did not live to observe
my aborted Spring.
But I am not glad that you died.
In succouring gloom, I can open your front gate (feel the black paint rising on gathering rust under my hand) and walk your path, straight then sharply right to open the door (two sharp knocks on frosted glass) announcing “it’s only me”. Met by light and warmth Always, always (in my mind, as in life) I look around the door. The smell of gas fire, newspaper crosswords and Vosene. I sit on slippery green leather, gather up my feet. And here I stay. Because I cannot bear to let you stand and leave the room, to get the drink I always had to have.
It’s still raining.
Lacrimal, quiet.
Inside, builder’s dust and coffee
Children playing.
It too is light and warm.
Still I cry
Begging to come home.
7.12 am