Neither of us were up to the challenge,

the towering debris in mum’s bedroom

only made bearable by the prospect

of an evening together, avoided.

We tread carefully around the remains:

the photographs, unframed, hastily sliced

in two. Our never-ending Jenga game.

One wrong move and the room turns nuclear.

I was the big red button you couldn’t

help but press. You brought on the destruction,

an eruption of chairs, tables, heirlooms

that only uncovered the mould and dust

under every wound. Quickly spiralling,

swarming around both our faces and eyes.

A cyclone clinging to your cable-knit

like a climber hanging off a cliff’s edge,

desperate to clamber into the cave’s

mouth, descend into its throat and stay there.

We begged the afternoon sunshine to hide

what the dust had discovered. Recovered.