The Remains

by Molly Donachie

After all, a small room,
with its finger on its cracked lips:
a chair, well-couched, an ashtray of ash,
photographs on an upper shelf 
this inventory
not what you’d expect.

A wreck yes, a mynah bird squawking
perhaps,
the debris from his heart attacks.
Even, sometimes the case, a drawer brimful
of loose change.

Not this
neat life - folded sheets, a few
bottles of beer, St.Theresa of Carmel hung over
the kitchen bin.
Not the picture that would spring immediately to mind,
if you knew him.