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Household Items

Carter called again, asking about his ladder,
it is in the basement, I still haven’t used it.
I meant to use it for the guttering last winter,
and now it is March, looks like I will have to lie, again.
Still, he did marry a former girlfriend,
who kept an old metal bucket,
some old LPs, and some books,
when he is a man of CDs and Kindle,
not much in the way of charm,
and less in looks.
I tell him I will return the ladder, when I am done
fixing the guttering, and winding him up.
At our age, you do anything for fun.

Catalogue

Me and you in matching tank tops,
you remember that time we modelled
for the Catalogue.
You in a smile, me in a frown,
you wearing the bright yellow,
me in the brown.

On that hill-side, pointing into the middle distance,
big boots, and bigger budgets,
page 57 in 1983.
I look back on that day,
thinking that this was it,
our youth, fleeting,
moribund in uncoordinated knit wear,
even in our youth, we looked old.

Then on page 87, surrounded by Tupperware.
Pouring tea from a tartan thermos flask,
wearing those black cagoules.
I wonder what happened to the others.
Maybe they moved onto Freeman’s,
or posed with children that weren’t their own for Argos.
Did they move to TV, and sell headache tablets, and walk in baths?
Do they look back on the 1980’s, and think
if they did it now, the opportunities would be different?