FIRE AND WATER Poem by Joke van Leeuwen

The chairs are ankle-deep inside, drawers
filled with former lives are damaged, it's raining
in the stairwell where the weather was so lovely.
The fragile gift from him or her is cracked
the cupboards badly charred, the doors are warped
and will not close, handwriting's run

into illegibility. And look here comes the loss
adjuster to pry and note which goods are good
and which are not - but what about what can't be
read, how can you tell if that was legible or not
before it started swimming, let alone, um, the . . .
And what goes off would have as well.

But money comes for new devices and
forget-about-it paint. The plastic tablecloth
cheese grater, books, bent reading lamp and
school notebooks, the bundled letters
the chairs with their legs in the air
the soggy photos of a party with goers

(repudiated Zeitgeist matted in their hair)
in short the personal effects that bore the brunt
can go into the skip. And early next morning
the scavenger shows up to rummage through the lot
and grab the things he thinks are worth a bob or two.
He takes the roll of council garbage bags.