Poem: Keep Smiling By Steve Whitaker

Keep Smiling

Mutton, steamed veg, spotted dick.
The wind-up clock's incessant tick.
The measurements of Miss Leith's days.

Her promptitude, her savoury duck,
her graceful middle years, her luck
at cards, the green baize royal flush

and nightly modest blush of pride;
a greater show of joy denied
behind a fan of privacy.

When pots and pans are safely stowed
and evening comforts guaranteed,
she leaves her 'boys', her travellers

to fugs of navy plug and ale
from cellar'd jugs, or India Pale.
And now as tongues are oiled, the talk

flows free; the laughter muffled in
the hall where Miss Leith stops to turn
the key, and pause, and hear

the skittering mice inside the wall.
Unmoved, unties her plait, lets fall
the thinning grey, and climbs the steep

and spiralled stair to find her room,
a cell to which no stranger comes
nor leaves behind faint vestiges

of breath, as broken moths leave dust.
Miss Leith is still. The opened case
reveals well-wrought inventories

of chastened days and empty nights,
her boat approaching harbour lights
of memory, of crucifix,

of photos in a silver frame,
now run aground on banks of shame
or salting fears in secret coves.

Undressed, anointed, newly bathed,
she lays across the shore of bed
and seeks the endless drift of waves.

As once was found, before Messines,
in this same attic ship, two moon-
bleached dreamers cast adrift in tides

of love, so now the only love
is hers, each token breath yet proof
of faith beyond the wind-drained withering dawn.