Tin Man

by Sarah Winman

Frost had settled on windscreens and birds’ nests,

She was there, his wife, a peripheral shadow moving across a doorway, or in the reflection of a window,

And I rang your doorbell, smelling of pine and a bit of winter.

your hair splayed out across your shoulders, and in the lap of dusk it looked blonde, but later I would find hues of red.

he rolled out of bed before he couldn’t.

He staggered up and felt so much space around him he almost choked.

He felt groggy all of a sudden. The disorientation of mixing memory and medication.

Dora’s happiness in a song.

the deep shadows eavesdropped on their grief,

But no matter what they sent out the bird came back with nothing between its beak.

Because everything she held on to and everything she believed in came together in that unexpected moment. The simple belief that men and boys were capable of beautiful things.

leave the telephone number of his parents for the ward to deal with because I’ve never been able to get through to them. Metaphorically speaking, that is.

The cold inches across the stone floor and finds my toes.

By the erotic dance of memory that pounces when loneliness falls.

Instead, I was swept under the carpet to join her.

The footfall of the past whispers across the Millennia.

And I think it might be quiet, unperceptively so, and not dramatic at all. Like the sound of an exhausted swallow falling gently to earth.

I followed the chatter of voices down the road until the incessant hum got louder and the streets busier, and I entered the Place du Forum, and found the world congregating there.

the rabid sun had chewed hard on my neck.

At five to eight, the smell of grilled fish knocked at my door.

scent is strong. The summer is coming

Good shift in tense/time

They are boys in the bodies of men, but

this familiar city walking by.

In my chest, the sound of an exhausted swallow falling gently to earth.