Across the darkened mushrooms, almost crisp,
loving words and thoughts were shone.
Halcyon days that are lost in the mist of time –
words breathed into a thick air.
A touch – reached across the table of life –
just moving the quiff on a schoolboy’s brow.

Her hand an eiderdown of love and care.
Lips imparting secrets there.
Lost, now.

The smell of smoke on a light Summer’s day
drifting in and out of rooms.
The scales of life adjusted by her existence,
balancing the bad with good,
she brought – with her smouldering tea-towel –
laughter into my mother’s dour front room.

Her smile a marshmallow of fun and play.
Sunshine in every day –
with her.

The thud of fear in my trembling belly.
One or two words too many ….
A child, barely grown into early teenage years,
prematurely speaks with men,
and puts – with quite some unassuming ease –
a foot firmly between his pair of lips.

Her pain a needle ever in my mind.
Sorrow at last defined –
but way, way …

… too late.

© Allen Ansell (c2005) 2026