A single rose

A single rose

In a jar

On the windowsill

Goldfish floating

In suspension

A gift from the funfair

An incentive from

The rag’n’bone man

(Any old iron

Alive alive-o)

With his horse and cart

Taking away

The old and broken.

They used the horse,

A Clydesdale

All spruced up

To pull the hearse

For those who could afford it,

Tradition

Doesn’t come cheap.

The rose grows

In retrospect

It fills my mind

Brought in from the garden

Snipped to length.

Orchids could learn

A lot about longevity

Dying from too much care

Too little

Too much sun

Or not enough

Demanding the windowsill

From the roses

Whatever happened to

Door-to-door salesmen?

A suitcase

Full of appliances,

(You don’t really need)

Opened on the

Front doorstep

My dad would talk

To him in Hindi

It might have been Farzi

Who am I to know

But he did.

What did your dad

Do in the war

Mine removed dog tags

To identify the dead.

The tea man called

From his cab

My mother bought

A packet

Every Tuesday

It’s not a drink

It’s an institution,

I refused to join.

The goldfish

Seemed to last forever

How many trips to the pet shop

Do you need to make

To keep up

Appearances

My mother would know

My mother would know.