Raw cement floor
fading damp walls,
two gas rings
reeking of rancid cabbage,
a piss stained sink
and the pervading smell of unwashed bodies
and silent despair.
A basement kitchen
that had never been visited by sunlight
and no one laughed here
if anyone did
it was a drunken snigger,
like a scream of suffering
by those who never asked why this has to be.

This was a kitchen of poverty,
slices of week old loafs with stale margarine
and if you didn’t want it, shut up!
It was here, at the forecourt of hell,
that father hung himself
and mother hit his inert body with ladle
shouting obscenities
before going to the police,
left me alone with him
and two slices of loaf with brown sugar on.
Serious men in black cut him down
and carried him out
and sent me to a home
that had sunlight streaming through clean windows.