There are more changes each time I return
Two widows are living together in the attic
Among the encyclopedias
And gold vestments.
A fishmonger
Opens his shop at the angle of the stairs.
The scullery I see has been extended,
A wide cloister, thatched, with swallows
Nesting over windows, now hides the garden.
I wake in Rome, and my brother, aged fifteen, meets me.
My father has sent him with a naggin of coffee and brandy,
which I drink on the platform.
And wake again in an afternoon bed
Grey light sloping from windowledge
To straw-seated armchair. I get up,
Walk down a silent corridor
To the kitchen. Twilight and a long scrubbed table,
The tap drips in an enamel basin
Containing peeled potatoes. A door half-open and
I can hear somebody snoring.