Their clothes – still packed in drawers:
primrose on damson, lavender on peach,
and the tiny box
for the loss of milk teeth.
Their stories – incomplete,
leaving empty pages in albums
arranged in tiers on bookshelf
on silent afternoons.
Their games and toys – all stored away.
Just one coat on a hook in the hall,
carpet missing the mud and muddle
of after-school debris.
Mid-morning simply brings
plain cornflakes and toast,
black coffee and pills,
and no need to hurry.
Janina Aza Karpinska, Artist-Poet, earned an M.A. in Creative Writing & Personal Development, Sussex University, England, soon after which she won 1st Prize in The Cannon Poets Competition. With work in several anthologies and magazines, she is particularly pleased to be included in the ‘Poems in the Waiting Room’ project. She has run writing workshops at the tax office; in launderettes; pet stores; tattoo parlours and an ‘adult boutique’. Karpinska lives on the coast in Hove, south of England.
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