Song of a Riverbird

She Was Only Five

Her body was an abbey
after all, she was only five.
She knew psalm 23
like her mother's face-
a dead face stuck in a pan

When the shepherd slumbered,
the wolf with proverbial teeth and familiar eyes
wiled the lamb away into dark rooms
and draped her neck with a scarlet hood.
The silence of those dark rooms
could make your eyes water.
It was a wild silence. All quiet
but for the hinges of a closing conscience.

It's Christmas and Daddy bubbles with carols.
Four dainty smiling dolls,
Three winks,
Two-year-old secrets
and a bleeding sparrow on a thorn bush.
She is only seven.
Her body is a brothel.
She shall not want.

Jilted Jack

To Jill cried Jack
as he stood from his fall,
gathering substance of splintered skull,
Help me with my head!

Said Jill to Jack
as she tumbled down,
You're even less use now
with your crumpled crown.
I'm headed for the mall!

After all I've done?
You ungrateful wretch!
How many boys
would even have bothered?

So you really think
I was born to fetch?
Ponder that while you recover!

A Quiver of Questions

Did he really have to go
the way we made him go?
After all we did make him.
Did he really have to go?

Does he really have to live
in the pipes of a clinic sink?
Who will wash soap off his eyes
when the doctor washes his hands
clean?

Will we ever laugh again
or name our first son Christian
or speak of cots and the colour blue
without the memories of my legs strung high?

What will I tell his brother
when he asks me, 'Mama, do you love me'?
I'll say, 'Yes, dear, I prayed for you
after he had to go.'

'Go where Mama,' he'll question me.
'Where Mama? Let's go fetch him!'
'We'll see,' I'll say but really think:
from the pipes of a clinic sink?

Sell-by Date

better I let him now
while I still engage
the persistent haranguing
of marketplace bargaining

than to need it
when the brawl
has reclined to a crawl
and no one stoops to bargain
at my market stall.