Pastel shades, gold, and scarlet, splendid in the evening light.
The room was largely decorative with plumes of grey and black and blue. They called it a masterpiece – the papers – and the writer, a collector of textiles and pottery, declared it a success. His wallpaper was a unique blend of colour, and life depicting adventures from Africa, with lion skins and giraffes coupled with Anglo French draperies and rare items from Indonesia. And then the fire, a sombre candle for his mother, on a writing desk below the chintzes from Liberty in London.
Alone now, in a boarding house.
antiquities lost,
some, but not all forgotten,
nothing left to lose.