This week's poem was "No. 115 dreams" by Jackie Kay.
No. 115 dreams
The living room remembers Gran dancing to
Count Basie.
The kitchen can still hear my aunts
fighting on Christmas day.
The hall is worried about the loose
banister.
The small room is troubled by the missing
hamster.
The toilet particularly dislikes my
Grandfather.
The wallpaper covers up for the whole
family.
And No. 115 dreams of lovely houses by the
sea.
And No. 115 dreams of one night in the
country.
The stairs are keeping schtum about the
broken window.
The toilet's sick of the trapped pipes
squealing so.
The walls aren't thick enough for all the
screaming.
My parent's bedroom has a bed in a choppy
sea.
My own bedroom loves the bones of me.
My brother's bedroom needs a different boy.
And No. 115 dreams of yellow light, an
attic room.
And No. 115 dreams of a chimney, a new red
roof.
And the red roof dreams of robin redbreasts
tap dancing on the red dance floor in the
open air.
From The Thing that Mattered Most (Black & White / Scottish Poetry Library, 2006).
Reproduced by kind permission of the author.
