Lower Fell Farm, Kirkby Cuthbert

I, VIOLET HANSEL, do hereby bequeath the aforementioned property and all contents known or unknown to CARA THORNTON.

The farm was built for memories
and it only knows how to remember.
Even as it slumbers
beneath an unseasonable blanket.
Even when Mrs Violet
could only forget,
that which is darker than the rest
and refuses to sleep.

This day one is a fake.
The splintered sign that forgot her name
and weeds and time and no time at all.
These are firsts wrapped up in memories and a lie
because today is just another
and Mrs Violet is not here.

Some memories don’t live
neatly stacked on shelves
with Mrs Violet’s
harsh scrawl on labels.

They make space
underneath bits of broken bench,
call hutches home
and barns their world.

They hide with broken wings
atop stacks of hay,
where Thomas the tabby
cat can’t get but a little girl
with scraped knees can.

Here they wait to be happened upon.
Here they were found
after every step.
They didn't ask permission
after too long years.
Only demanded to be felt.

The house was not one but two,
lived in and lived outward—
Comfort with orderly as the neighbour.
The suitcase leaned against
the door to orderly.
Her toes found the carpet
frayed by comfort.
Two cats shadowed slow steps
and followed remembering fingers.
The house was not one but two
And had no damn food.

At night something
whispers beneath the barn.
But the morning is for rationale.
Taking the sounds
and placing them on the kitchen shelf.

This isn't the witching hour.
It's that moment before waking,
where what went bump in my life
is only made of nightmares
and I can still wake up.

He was the first melt.
His brightness caused snow to lean away
and ploughs to feel offended.
Mrs Violet had many clients
but his eyes were too full
of everything he had lived.
He was not orderly
but neither was he comfort.
He looked like a memory waiting to be forgotten
with sherpards pie in hand
and friendship on the side.

'The last time it snowed like this it was a Tuesday in March and the goats escaped. Mrs Violet wore her favourite grey flat cap and disdain.'

The pie she took with ease
but she had little appetite for a side.

She found the note tucked
inside a cracked teapot,
in the same cramped hand
on jar labels
and scrunched up shopping lists.
It said only one thing—

She knew it wasn't for her.