Christopher

Christopher always wore a pullover
when he wrote
short-sleeved v-necked.
He had six of them
three grey three black.
He wore a different one each day
then washed it by hand in Woolite
and laid it out flat to dry
carefully. He never needed to buy any more.

Christopher wrote at a child’s school desk
he had rescued from the skip
when the village school closed.
He was an adult but just small enough
to get into the seat.
He wrote with a Parker Pen
which he filled with Quink from the inkwell
but the ink was too expensive
so then he used the free pens
from the charity letters.

Christopher liked to keep the daylight
out of his room
because it faded everything so.
He wrote behind drawn curtains.
He switched on his desklamp
when it got dark but the electricity bills
were too high.
Candles were cheaper.

Christopher found one hundred and thirty two
school notebooks in the skip, unused.
The paper was white and coarse
and lined with blue.
He would have preferred the blue paper
his mother used when she was alive
but the notebooks cost nothing
and it was a shame to see them go to waste.

I kept all the letters Christopher sent to me
when I was in Canada; and now I have
all the letters he wrote and didn’t send
when he could no longer afford the stamps.
And I have thirty-seven notebooks
unused, if you would like them.

By Stephen Fryer