Iron Coffin

I’ve seen them waiting in docks, nervous of eyes, like

Mothers waiting for their children at the school gate.

Gaunt, an iron fist, a gauntlet, rocking to sleep the children

In their bellies, meandering across vast oceans, laden and creaking

With secrets contained inside a iron coffin, sealed with sealing wax

Of wire and embossed like a Lord Mayor’s ceremonial chain of office

Weighted down, bow-legged on a legless sea-camel,

Interlocked like rusting Lego, numbered by once white sprayed stencil

Now, scratched like a whore's back, logo over-painted to lie or confuse

Disfigured, laying naked on top of each other, like spent lovers

Abandoned, metallic mouths now wide open waiting for rented food

Below a red and yellow Self Storage sign, signed off with an afterthought,

‘24/7 Access’ in a brazen new-speak of lazy shorthand communication

That promises the prospect renter a new key and little else.

Beside one of these iron, echo-cavern monsters I sit in my car awaiting

All my worldly goods to arrive in a rented van loaded by a dubious

Russian and two mid-European banal muscles who don’t even try to hide

The new scar, jagged on the dining table, crafted like a jealous idiot running

A screwdriver along a new car’s paintwork.

I trace my rain wet finger along the defaced table, remembering when once

This dining table was our pride, running your newly ringed finger along the veneer

Marquetry, inter-spliced with apple and rose-wood that perfumed the showroom with

Lavender polish that masked the salesman’s overpowering breath.

© Harry Mills

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