FUGUE

The tubular metal skeleton
Of the wheel barrow
Was all that remained amidst
The ashes it was
Meant to shift,
So I had to shovel them
Into a sink bowl to move them,
And was later told that the dishes
Were still in there, but they weren’t, as I
Imagine they’d been re-fired the night before.
And to top it all
Nobody knew
When it was dinner time
As the only clock in the house
Had also been sacrificed to the flames.
Luckily for our tired frames
The settee and its relatives
Still remained in the front room,
Although one chair was slightly charred
And scuffed with
Paint the same colour
As the back doorway,
So we must have remembered
Enough sense to return the furniture
Inside before it burned too.
There was so much distance in that house
Once we arrived, although it was only terraced,
And silence in the sounds
Once cherished.
Not only were we going slowly,
But poorly as well.