Good Quality Image

Your past hangs round you like a cloak,
(a good quality one: it came from Harrods)
you are surrounded, wrapped,
trapped, in its thickly woven grip.
You think it's best to be so sheltered;
image preserved. Preserved, jarred
(the best; from Fortnum & Mason)
with double-barrelled pretensions
pickled in the capacious pockets
of history that bulge with deceit.
The label in the lining gives you
the means to hook on your hang ups,
so you think you are safe under it;
that no-one can see who you really are.

But clothes maketh not the man; nor woman.
(even Harrods can't hide you, not from me)
My eyes see through your trappings,
while you hold tighter, pull harder;
your frantic fears about to be uncovered.
My ears pick up the death rattle of the jars
(even Fortnum & Mason lids don't last for ever)
as the false fronted pockets weep sound,
and wear the aging thread away.
Out drip the soured contents; leaking
onto my unwilling, unreceptive tongue.
Unsavoury and unpalatable;
your regrets may be obscured from some
but my nose knows who you really are.