the quiet before I came,
the banana pancakes you made,
tea steaming in the morning chill,
our shyness,
after I'd stayed.
It has held, in its time,
letters from home,
projects mapped out in your red lined notebook,
time pressing against you,
pliers, screwdrivers and tacks laid out ready.
It remembers everything,
a joy of oranges in the fruit bowl,
figs ripe from the picking,
our fingers peeling cheese breads from the foil,
tipping them into that scalloped dish your mother gave you,
the one with the roses.
It knows the weight and curve of all these things,
how the light fractals across them,
knows the shade our words cast.
It holds us here, remembers
the warmth of your hands on mine.
Becky has recently finished a PG Diploma in Creative Writing at The University of York. Her work has been published in Ellipsiszine and Mistake House magazine and was longlisted for the Bath Short Story Award in 2019. She tweets at @beckymaywriter