Carnegie House

 

This poem first appeared in Dundee Writes 1 (ed. Josephine Jules Andrews)

 

I sit in the sun parlour.

I am barely here:

a cloud of dust,

a ring left by a teacup.

 

He sent me here.

I was sick, he said, truly sick.

Hysterical.

 

I had been to an art gallery.

I had been unrestrained.

 

The paintings, he said,

were the works of madmen,

and those who love them

madder still.

 

We are not allowed in the dispensary,

but I go there.

 

I touch the shining scales,

the brown bottles,

the jars of salt,

the barrels with their buckled wood.

 

I run my fingers over them

and think of drinking something sour.