CHRISTMAS TRIMMINGS IN THE CUPBOARD ON THE STAIRS...

The Cupboard On the Stairs

The American Native Indian figure, his long paddle gripped,

Had posed on one knee,

Typically.

The canoe had once been slotted

Through a closet door’s handles,

Conveniently,

Prohibiting the cat any escape 

From the darkness

Within and I lurked, I hovered and I listened,

As the terrified Ricky

Floundered inside, 

Impatiently…

The disused, battered blue suitcase, its long fastenings clipped,

 Was confined to bulk storage,

Perennially.

The contents inside were disparate,

Behind the closet’s doors, glossed

Annually,

Permitting me, each December 

 Into the depths

To seek and I gawped, I delved and treasures glistened,

As the traditional trimmings

Quivered inside,

Expectantly… 

Pete Ray

24th December 2015

The cupboard was on the upstairs landing of a boyhood house in Shard End, Birmingham. Dark inside, my cat Ricky was held there for a short while after we had moved house from Ward End, when I was seven years old. The two doors were held firmly shut by the toy metal canoe slotted between the two rectangular pull-handles. It was, of course, minus its paddling ‘Red Indian’, as the fellow was known to me then.

Similar to mine, but canoe was pale blue.
Don't remember much about the Indian...

In that cupboard, my parents kept an old blue suitcase, wherein their Christmas trimmings were placed in the early days of January by my mum, who simply wanted the house ‘back to normal’. 

She meant plain…