DÉCOUPAGE

DÉCOUPAGE

DÉCOUPAGE

The day of your post mortem
I cleaned the kitchen
to blot out the hour you’d be cut up,

made apple pie, scrubbed the table
again, wondering how
you were getting on. If you were here

you’d be sat there with your pinking shears
thinking in appliqué, stencilling
quilted queens: Branwen, Marie-Antoinette,

long-necked with their net coronets,
sewn into chiffon gowns, sequins pinned into their eyes,
silk lips slit into diamonds, their cheekbones

slashed indigo lines.
I reconstruct your mosaic face
in my head as I wash up, I,

restricted by nine stitches in my back,
itself a collage of red lines and thread,
my deckle-edged tumour out of the picture now.

We were trying to piece you together,
your new tenant explains on the phone,
what you leave behind tells a story, doesn’t it?