The Inventory of After

by

The Inventory of After 

The Britannica sits on the shelf,
volume S gone, a gap where
the history of salt once lived.

The silent engine of the fridge
 buzzing in the kitchen at 4 a.m.,
 a single spoon in the sink:
 a monument
 to a meal unshared.

You look for a sign and get instead
 the clogged sink
 and the smell of soap powder
 and tobacco.

The light hits the sill
 and falls on the ring from the tea mug,
 unopened letters and pharmacy receipts from December.

We survive by the grit of the windowframe,
 the cracked switch,
 the broken light fixture.

The dead don’t ride in stone boats.
 They stay in the dust of
 vinyl and shellac,
 stacked Aeromodeller magazines,
 the book by the bedside,
 a door sticking in the heat,
 the slice of the apple on the plate,
 the thin, skewed shadow left behind.

 

Photos of Christopher Holford by Patricia Wilden

19 thoughts on “The Inventory of After”

  4. Miss u chris. Now in hospital myself. Should have stayed with norma. All protection from liability none about care of the patient in Whipps. I lay awake in the cold. How we could have chatted in the morning before u left. At kelling tea rooms…in past.

  11. Patricia’s photographs are wonderful. That Chris’s final bedside reading was Alternating Current Measurements (1937) is perfection. Your poem in memoriam captures beautifully resonant details of a life well lived. We shall miss him.

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