(For Laura Ashley)

Have you been to Carno?

Seen the slate grey faces in the empty streets

Where only the Spar now offers its mundane retail therapy?

Have you been to the factory?

Seen the boarded units

Where once the floral prints blossomed off the looms?

Have you seen the headstone?

In John The Baptist’s churchyard

Where Laura lies in patterned rest?

But you know the patchwork quilt she made

The antique fabric of our lives,

The golden look of summer that warmed dull winters.

And I know that in a trunk upstairs at home,

There is some treasured Carno lacework:

The dress my wife wore the day I married her.