When he was alive he sold paint, so I guess
it shouldn’t have come as a surprise that paint
was what we found in the cupboards. Sure,
there was a broken clock, some dusty ornaments
and one or two old photos, but mainly there was paint.
Tins of old paint. Neither me nor my grandmother
knew what to do with them, or how long they had
been there. She said she’d give them to the decorator,
see if he could make use of them. I took them down
one by one, drawing a blank where a world used to be.