Susan
Trofimow

It’s true, for me there was no hearth. 

          No admiration on their faces                         

          the colour of stone. Cold air                                          

          touched everything, and I became 

          obsessed with the darkened stairway –

         steps that led to a locked door.

         In the painting lay the golden fat, shaping

         itself in a young boy’s hands.

         I could only imagine that

         sweetening, imagine the taste

          of the animal born, already thinking

         beyond those walls, and the overused

         rags on a backroom floor.

         Almost too late, the light arrived –

         coming from a window I couldn’t see.  

         The lion had drawn himself closer,

         and with him the scent of cream.