ABANDONATA

ABANDONATA

ABANDONATA

Above the stove his longjohns hang
where he pegged them on June 10th 1911.

A pin-up of a girl’s naked back
beside his bunk is curling up to his

spilt shelf of charts and logs, the diary’s yard
of ink. Frozen to death, outside,

the remains of a dog, chained in ice.
And here, Ponting’s darkroom, reliquary

of vials and plates splayed like cards.
On the table where Scott raised a final

birthday glass, a visitor has tried a slice
of a hundred-year-old ham. Tins

of boiled mutton, brawn, Tate & Lyle
syrup lie thick and slow as the snow’s

drift, preserving an era’s hour.
And what of the women they left behind,

pausing each night on the stairs
to wind the heart of a clock,

folding and unfolding clothes, reading
and re-reading letters, weighing

each word, like a body?