I.
Sometimes I see it like a doll’s house –
walls lifted away, each room kept exactly as I remember it.
Held in a moment when I was 5, 10, 20;
the versions layered on top of one another as children move out,
or partners move in;
as toy baskets give way to plants, pottery, and bookshelves.
There is a life here, filed in remembered moments,
smells,
paints.
And from the outside, wrapped in red tiles,
it seems so small
for all that it has been home to.
II.
My wall is painted with water-based paint –
gently washing over childhood yellows and more,
all the way back to small scraps
of oddly-patterned Victorian wallpaper.
In places the layers poke out, almost imperceptibly –
a cut into a past life.
And on the surface, little patches that shine out from the matt.
A handprint,
a palm,
a sweaty back –
each with a story.
You can see them sometimes.
(In the right light.)
Joe Spence
“SL2 4NZ”
The hot Summer of ’76 –
I remember, I remember
A bookish teenager –
A literary pilgrimage
Chloe Green
“OX1 1DP”
summer’s dust has turned to mud beneath leaf-fall carpet – orange, red. we toss sticks into the flood, the river’s mouth is hungry, fed...
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Back in 2015, 26 of our writers were partnered with 26 carefully selected postcodes, each with a literary significance. Returning to the idea 10 years on in 2025…