Blog

18th April, 2025

Friday Poem – ‘The opposite of Swedish death cleaning’ by Alison Binney


This week’s Friday Poem is the title poem from The Opposite of Swedish Death Cleaning by Alison Binney which was published this week.

The opposite of Swedish death cleaning
Lately, I conjure a woman in Stockholm
opening her father’s front door into laminate light, the scent of lemons. Crossing the hall to his study, she finds the folder marked Död in an otherwise empty desk, and heads for the kitchen – one chair, one mug, one teaspoon, one coffee filter left.
I want an antonym for döstädning, these days, for we are not Swedish, and this is messy, you in the home, not yet dead, me frisking your house for Ladybird books and egg cups, stamp albums, paperweights and pebbles,
for fifty nubs of Imperial Leather soap.
My Swedish double rinses her father’s mug, leaves it to drain while she makes a few calls, then slips it into her bag. Perhaps it will hold her toothbrush. Perhaps, on the train home, a line from a bedtime poem will hum
for a moment, then mumble itself to sleep.