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Description
High ceilings, cornices moulded in the complex
forms of imagined vegetation. Once the stained
boarding of the floors would have been polished
to a mirror sheen, the windows, standing tall,
hung with a heavy wealth of curtain.

                                               Not any more.
The threadbare carpet on the floor confronts
the small electric fire in the grate. There was
elegance and glamour here, but you have left
your visit far too late. Don't try the lever for
the servants' bell!
              No bells have jangled
here since the war before the war, that
most of us have forgotten. The heir
and both his brothers were among the hordes
who found their rest in unmarked graves.

A bitter harvest that followed on so rich
promise of what might have been.
The accumulated junk obscures
the spaces that the architect devised for polite
and civilised exchanges, a dingy odour
has replaced the scent of fresh delivered
                                                     flowers.

In the distant corners of her mind
she might occasionally find some wisp of
connection, a memory she cannot recognise
or own. It fades as rapidly as it came,
a manly scent, the echo
of a once-remembered name.