It was like watching industrious ants

remove the dead and dying

from a destructive battle with termites

on the day the council brought a skip round

for the street to use.

 

The recently cleaned curtains had been twitching

since the first rays of light burrowed underneath

with bristling mole nose and soft soulless feet on

creaking stair in blind anticipation

for the promised skip and the tremble

of making sure what could be gone

was gone.

 

The skip duly arrived and was saluted by curtains

that shuddered gleefully

and the race was on to empty the house

of all the dead.

 

The bell rang out, bring them out,

empty your drawers

and pockets of lint, the chest half broken,

the collection of burned out light bulbs

and selection of never needed wood

that the forests miss but you thought would

offer the husband a project to sink his

teeth into, her clapped out dentures

also biting the dust.

The buckled chairs, the punctured wheel of a long forgotten

fourth hand

Ford Focus that once went the distance

on a trek to the South Coast

before catching fire on the Brighton

promenade and the memories of a radio

stuck on Radio Two at three in the morning…

all found their way into the skip left the by council.

 

By half past ten it was rammed,

distance making the passing of such perishables

and once loved things seem empty

as was some of the gardens in the row of terraced houses

that made sure they stayed awake and vigilant

in case of termite war, those that slept

through the September morning dew

and dream like embers, an opportunity missed

to put their unwanted, dying and dead

in the council loaned skip.

 

Ian D. Hall 2015.