States of Poetry 2016 - Western Australia | ‘Surely Someone’ by Carolyn Abbs
Tenement Building (black & white photograph)
Chris Kilip, Tate Britain, 2014
you view the house from across the street
part of a terrace it fills the frame
the roof is cut off no sky dim light
upstairs a balcony
door window bricked-up defiant
downstairs a curtain is torn
you move in closer but can't see into the room
front door pint of milk on the step
dustbin on the kerb
it's the pint of milk that disturbs you
you wait if you wait surely someone
will fetch in the milk...
not even a sparrow pecks at the silver-top
the house bereft of sound
is like the backdrop to a disused stage
rain has left sheen on the tarmac
a month later you read:
bulldozers arrived like thunder
Carolyn Abbs
'Surely Someone' was published in Cordite Poetry Review, no. 49, 2015.