She had one of those names
I can never remember
Soft
Like Claire or Rebecca or
What was
And she lived in this house
At the top of my street
The white house us kids called it
It had two large pillars by the door
And mum would always mumble
There goes Jackie Kennedy
Whenever we saw her pass us by
And I think my mum
She’d never say it
She’d never say a bad word about anybody
Heart of gold
But she’d nibble her pinkie
And then you’d know
Cause the thing is this woman
She’d never smile or
I remember once
It was at a Tesco
And I remember it because you didn’t see her out often
She was a recluse her husband too
And she was in the veg aisle and she was trying to pick up one of those
A pepper
I think
Or
Only her fingers had splints and she couldn’t quite-
I gave her a hand and dropped it in her basket
But she didn’t
Not a word of thanks
Gave me a look like
Then stalked away
My mum damn near nibbled her pinky right off
We didn’t see her around much after
She went to stay with a relative
Or at least that’s what we heard
That’s what he
Her husband
Nice man
We all thought
Everyone was so shocked when
I mean he’d sneak us ice cream when we were out playing and
My fiancé
He says
Why d’you always think about such horrid things eh
But
I just
You just think
Why did she
You know
Why didn’t she
Run out the door not up the stairs that’s what you learn from those horror films
Run out the door
And I
Sometimes I have this dream and in it
I have to pack everything before-
You know the essentials
Passport
Toothbrush
And I’ll get to the car and realise I forgot my purse or something
And I dash back in
And-
It was these little kids that found it
A suitcase
Gosh can you imagine
These little
They were only
And they pushed it over
And-
The smell.
Like old milk
And to this day I can’t I can never be in
Small spaces
I take one step and I think-
I think about her all the time actually
I mean it’s 3am and I can’t even
My head is just
We saw mum today
And I wanted to know if she remembered
But my fiancé Chris he got
He got quite mad actually
Not mad no
He just
Hot headed
That’s it
We had to leave before dinner in the end
He and mum-
She wouldn’t usually say a bad word about anybody but
It’s my fault really
I shouldn’t’ve brought it up
I’ll hear no end of it in the morning
He doesn’t like it when I go on
And I know I go on
I do
But I can never
What was
Emma?
No, that wasn’t it.
