SHOWROOM

If you need reminding of how to remember
then catch me concave or convex in sepia
tones. Learn to watch yourself with candour
in the glass of a kiln, lit only by the blush
of a forgotten moon; the stuff of the past
composed in the style of a different tongue.
Listen carefully for the abject spark, a stray
cough crackling amid the sullen order of lunar
shelves. It’s the lesson of habitation: to hear
the lumpen silence of familiar milieus, shuffling
about in the breathed-on foreground of domestic
mockery. At least you’ll be schooled in proper
shapes; will know what it is to hold, or was.