The late one.

The late one.

I cannot remember when

Somebody read to me

Just to me

Yeah

Actually to me,

For me, alone.

Not a teacher

Or a classmate

Or at a reading

Where an author,

(not me, obviously)

Smirks smugly

Waiting for questions

That are never the ones

To cause offence

(I do wish they were)

But none of this really counts

As being read to.

I guess my mother did when I was

A little one

Snuggled up in a coverlet

Wrapped and swaddled

Against the cold

With a paraffin heater in the corner

Before it blew up

Creating havoc

(Prefabs were made of asbestos

And plywood).

It was a single-storey

Full of soot and smoke.

A tale of horror

Not to be confused with a horror story

Which often has a twist

A moral to enlist our understanding

Of the ‘right and proper’ thing to do

To avoid an unhappy ending

When we all know

What will be, will be

Unless we can avoid it.

I don’t remember the reading

But I do remember the fear.

I can smell it

In claustrophobia

The constriction of my throat

The taste of oil and wet blanket

I hate the taste of wool

I bathe with the door open

To avoid a build-up of steam.

One day I will be read to

When there is no choice

A prisoner of conscience

A conscious presence

Barely compos mentis

Unable to turn the pages for myself.

Swaddled in coarse blankets

The taste of wool in my mouth

Wrapped against infection

In a state of dis-ease

The smell of embrocation

And liquid paraffin

To open the bowels

As a volunteer reads

From a dog-eared text

Suitable for the nearly departed

Waiting in limbo

For the right to reach the end

And close the book