The Trusted House

This Trusted house, its doors and windows set,
stands ready with, instead of a verandah
and the old furniture I still forget,
racks for the brass of trumpeting allamanda,
a copious front yard and our gramophone playing
one of my mother’s singles “Please don’t say ‘no’ say ‘maybe’”
the scratchy record sounding like far rain,
to Derek, Pam and Roddy and Pam’s baby,
the little golden Nigel, they fill our home again,
including Uncle Ozzie who wrote endless sermons
in his small room upstairs, Mama’s sewing machine,
a Singer, pedaled and steered the house’s human freight
and a great kannang tree lit every scene
up and down Chaussée Road. For all those who have been,
my eyes’ windows brim, as I unlatch the gate.