Home (is in the) Skirting Boards

Home (is in the) skirting boards.

Home: the place I'll find often the time,

To sit upon the floor,

Between the chairs and sofa,

Against the skirting boards.

These wooden railroads journey,

Through the topography of lives,

Gliding over paintwork peeled-

by decorating knives.

The knife of incoming parents,

Who bought a family's family home-

and replaced these strangers' grime and marks,

With emulsion of their own.

All children who were raised here-

consumed radiator heat,

When winter blotted autumn,

With the snow upon the street.

it took until the children -

Left only to return,

To visit with new children,

With energy to burn.

To rise above the skirting,

To live above the stairs,

To climb down from the top bunk,

To accumulate life's wares.

Home is where the heart beats,

Above the skirting boards,

While even empty of the bad kin,

It beats warmth among the frauds.

JS Harding is a novelist and humour writer who has written for BBC Comedy and NewsThump. His psychological thriller, Under Rand Farm, written under the pen name LJ Denholm is available via Amazon, while his forthcoming humour novel, The Good Dr Grevaday? is slated for release in early 2022.