Poem of the week: Old Flat, Abandoned by Rory Waterman

A return visit to a former home shows that the life once lived there is definitively lost

Old Flat, Abandoned

I force open the door:
its shadow shoots
down the wall
where webs tremble
in door-breath and light.
A thread bows. Breaches.
Ahead, the flight
of (bare wood) steps
(with carpet tacks)
runs up to gloom.

Old Flat, Abandoned is from Rory Waterman’s excellent third collection Sweet Nothings, published in May 2020.