This was first published in an anthology of prose poetry, by Cinnamon Press in 2011 – This Line Is Not For Turning. One reviewer saw it as about travelling and moving on; for me it’s about loss. I wrote it after the my mother, Florence Bird, died. I still miss her.
Someone had folded her clothes and put them on the bed, stripped now to a thick plastic sheet. On top of her nightie was a menu card; under 'special requests' she had scratched rarsbries.
In smudged red ink, someone had stamped: UNAVAILABLE
Bath, 2008
Poetry by Sylvia Fairclough 