Numbed after the funeral
she went back home alone.

To search the clutter of a man now dead
and clean the trash in his garden shed.

Jamjars, cigar boxes and tobacco tins,
nails and screws and drawing pins.

Fuses, toggles and reels of sticky tape,
hooks, and springs and fishing weights.

Half-used candles and dried-up pots of glue,
spare motoring bulbs that never got used.

Rusty washers and waterproofing wax,
a pile of scrunched-up paper bags.

The old leaky taps from the kitchen sink,
a fountain pen and a bottle of ink.

These trivial things cause her to think of him,
and she gently starts to weep.

As she opens a little box inscribed -
' Bits of string, too short to keep '.