Three Poems

Dejunk Queen

You bought me the book for Christmas,
as a joke I suspect. It appeared
wrapped in tasteful paper, the label teasing -
'You don't really need this!'
I sat in the bath and read the first chapter.

It started with the cupboards.
I emptied them out and sorted them through.
Old make-up, textbooks, boyfriends,
threw my past into a swing bin, desperate
for the rubbish men to take it away.

Then my clothes, and some of yours.
Threadbare jeans, sequinned tops,
an old dinner jacket, the shoes your ex-wife
had chosen. I took them all to the charity shop -
passed my curves onto someone else for a pound.
...