The Spoon in the Bathroom by Ian Williams
Arts Richmond
Online - 19 September 2020

There’s a spoon in the bathroom.
It was the last thing that she touched
before they came for her.
Dazed and disorientated
they led her away and quietly sat her in the car.
I remember that look on her face,
a mixture of bewilderment but also knowing;
knowing she would never see the house again
but not understanding why.
Incongruently happy but with tears on her cheeks.
She was happy here,
her home for over thirty years.
Once her pride and joy
she would polish the brass and dust the mirrors.
Each spring she would paint the doorstep with Red Cardinal.
But the cobwebs that filled the corners
also crept into her mind.
Broken synapses fluttered gently in the breeze
and turned her personality to dust.
She still knew who I was
but I was out of time now,
an old man interloping in her youthful memories;
reminiscences that excluded me.
She would get up in the night,
leave all the lights blazing,
fiddle with the phone – dialling random numbers
in search of answers.
She wandered around, gathering objects
and then would leave them – misplaced as her memory.
There’s a spoon in the bathroom... it was the last thing she touched.
from ABOUT TIME, the 2019 anthology of shortlisted entries from The Roger McGough Poetry Prize. Copies of this Anthology can be purchased for £5 including P&P from Arts Richmond.
The Spoon in the Bathroom by Ian Williams
EGM and AGM
Wednesday 2 December 2020, 19:30
Online via Zoom
Young Writers Festival Competition
The Roger McGough Annual Poetry Prize 2020
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