Trevor Hughes. A long-time senior high English teacher like me and a good poet, likewise. (The following sonnet he read at my recent workshop on Poetic Sensibility is reprinted with his permission.)
That Room
I should have known it wasn’t left by chance,
that cluttered box-room full of junk
had no place in my mother’s scheme of things.
Old tins of paint and rusty brushes stank.
The iron bedstead clanked as it was lifted,
loose broken springs protruded from the base.
We dragged the sagging mattress on its side,
removed debris to make a new space
for me to occupy. And exorcize the curse
a dying baby leaves at night,
discharged sick from hospital. Bronchitis.
So, when her crying stopped, the door was shut.
Emerging from my old cocoon, I glimpse the stars’
cold light, feel their distant rays.