Picaroon Poetry - Issue #13 - September 2018

Karen Little
Supper Time
When she opened the door to the man in a brown suit, the girl
already saw him blowing cigarette smoke up their chimney,
heard him tunelessly accompany Wings from behind the sofa,
headphones clamped over hair containing not a single grey strand.
Her mother brushed mascara into the ones greying at her own temples
and beside her ears; she was eight years older than him, and often
told her daughter, you will be the death of me. The girl refused
to let him in, wouldn’t let him leave the box of albums indoors;
she knew how to say no before he established himself as family.
She didn’t know the sound of juggled coins in his trouser pocket
would drive her mad, that the rattle of a ‘supper tray’ outside
her bedroom, a fat sugary scone reflecting the light from her bedside
lamp, could instill a freezing in her chest. She didn’t take her eyes off
the sugar; imagined crawling inside to where the raisins were concealed
in a plump, secure silence. Burrowing to the centre, her hands scooped
a breathing place. When he left, she crumbled the scone between
her fingers, opened the window to throw crumbs for the birds, poured
milk in a steady stream down the outside wall, turned out her light.
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