SYLVIA KANTARIS 

Coming Home

(The Tenth Muse - Peterloo Poets 1983) - reissued Menhir Press 1986)

Home smells strange when you come back,

like a stranger's house.

A few days away are enough.

I tread carefully, skirting

letters on the mat and newspapers

that never will be read now.

One of the plants has withered.

Something always suffers.

The cat watches, wary, does not approach me.

I open cupboard doors with caution,

rediscovering half-forgotten things,

sit stiff on the edge of an upright chair

like someone only waiting, not intending

to stay here.

The house will not accommodate me yet.

Such things take- time.

You notice little, warming signs though,

gradually, like lights left on by accident,

like cracks in walls,

With strangers, given time, there might be

a slight loosening of the lines around the eyes,

a possibly quite accidental touch of hands

in passing, one soft word let slip,

quite unintentional perhaps but

half-heard, half-registered.

Back home again there are fires to be lit,

stopped clocks to wind up.

Little by little the house starts to

give a bit.

The cat jumps up onto my lap.

These things take time.

Trying now to out things in order,

unsettled still, I can't remember

whether you chose my cheek or lips

for that inconsequential parting kiss,

or which came last — 'Let's not be sad'

or 'Keep in touch', as if

you meant it,

as if we really would.

(By kind permission of Silvia Kantaris)