Poetry

The Corner Unit

I remember that settee like I’d sat on it only yesterday.
Seventies soft brown tones with a corner unit at one end
that marked an L-shaped pause. A hard edge to separate
the soft contours. Cluttered with compilation tapes, coffee 

cups, Refreshers and Rubik’s cubes. A school day
refuge, a Sunday lounge, a wet day den where we pretend,
a sick bay snug we go to mend, a space to chat, to eat
our tea, so many moments passed on that tired settee.

Now I stand as an adult in that foreign country.
I see the old television, its squat fat torso
pointing into the room, above the fireplace dad made.
All of us huddled around, passing time as place.

Those moments return to haunt me. Corners forming too little,
too late. Returning nothing but the shapes we make.

Kay Cunningham