The Weeping House

I went up with the cello,
steering the instrument around the staircase,
to my bedroom on the first floor.
I had the largest room in the house,
overlooking fields and orchards.
It had a mattress against the far wall in place of a bed,
a writing desk with ink stains and a scratched surface,
a chair with loose legs,
an old-fashioned chest of drawers in the corner.
The curtains matched the carpet in colour.
A shelf that…

No,
I mustn’t remember the grey-white building that had stood secluded off a country lane.
An entrance door situated around the side.
Ivy sprouting from walls,
untidy, unmanageable.
Broken chimney pots in the driveway,
A staircase that creaked, even when no one used it.
The building stands in ruins now,
surrounded by gnarled tree trunks like a row of weeping gargoyles.

No, I don’t want to see that house again.
But I do, and I always will in my dreams.