The smell of new curtains

​

It came from the right side like God, or a deer, a

Migraine warning;
Chemotherapy strikes at any time.

Where am I going wrong?

Under community skies and red roofed buildings, immaculate
And unfinished,

Holding on for next week’s rent,
Even if you were alive,

I’d not have listened,

Missing a father to say what’s wrong
In his opinion,

Old enough how,
To hear sterner words in music,

To understand that the clinic serves Japanese-Americans and Kenyans alike,
On the dusty Main Street of the farming village,

The dusty, ochre-coloured Main Street covered,
With maize drying, and

Women slipping from bus-stop to bus-stop with children in their hair, that was
Probably,

Paid for,
By a man with a plan – the clinic,

And mum’s words,
Soft and gentle and supportive,

And different from yours;

I can take it now daddy,
Where did I go wrong?

I can make things right now,
The deer came from the left.

And whilst hindsight works in accidents we do not see coming,
At least Cancer gives us time.

 

♦Photo♦ –  laurieanichols.wordpress.com

-short evocative poetry-