iss Haymes

"I'm tired of your concern, your mother-henning.
Your prising open of something pretty, something lost,
your polite digging, after all this time.
Your fumbling questions tumbling all over me,
nagging and nodding at my petty life."

She had walked around bleeding, bleeding for warmth.
Past the corpse supposedly planted in
the dog-forsaken garden beyond buried bones.
Past houses door-slamming their distain
amongst much growling and the whisper of suspicion

that the locals told about an absence
not understand even in her own house.
Past the neighbouring shutters that blocked
their inner glows with selective generosity:
cold heat dimmed by the snuff snub of douters.

The snatch had been a reclamation,
not a kidnap: something heartfelt returned
to its rightful place amongst homely objects.
Staid judgements had snapped their locks with fortitude,
to help keep disorder tidy and neat and within bounds.

The bleeding stopped later - with her snuffled hopes.
The wind's soft sigh had blown out her candle.
The remembrance in the window was no longer to dance
to the flickering leaves signalling to kin,
but now lay as a curled wisp in a clasped locket.

When questioned, eventually, about the keepsake,
she distanced herself from polite enquiry
by looking out at the garden's sapling:
it was just a little girl she once knew
- and it was past.