Lizbeth *****
her finger
imagines

it belongs
to the boy
Benedict

with eyes closed
savouring
each flavour

part salty
vinegar
(having ate

fish and chips
earlier)
tomato

of ketchup
the red thrills
***** deeper

whole mouthfuls
of finger
thinking on

that church pew
old dark wood
where they could

but didn't
have made love
she ***** slow

finger length
the painted
finger nail

salty still
each flavour
so distinct

even in
her chosen
warm darkness

of closed eyes
she passes
over both

her knuckles
warm wet skin
imagines

so hotly
between thighs
him within.

Like the loss of a limb
or a missing *****,
whether an arm, kidney
or half of a heart.

Every bone numbed,
laden with pins and needles,
every puppet-like move
languid, free of joy.

Hoping for a letter,
brandy to spike your mood,
but for now it’s Yeats on the moors
as you long for your wife.

How does a mother explain to a daughter
That the father she has loved-
The man who took the young girl in his arms to teach her how to dance in the musty attic, the father who sang her to sleep when the nightmares turned to terrors, the dad who taught her that laughter is the cure to everything;
How does a mother tell her daughter he chose a drink over his princess?
A gulp of liquid death whose fire burned
Not only down the throat,
But in the lives of the prisoner who that devil caught.
How did she tell her?
No words.
No mention of why daddy had fallen in that attic,
No saying that he'll come back.
No one ever told me that the reason I wake up screaming is from the dreams that can't be quieted without him. No mother told me that the wonderful man I remember, full of love and life had been drowning in his own choices. No it was left to a journal found way deep in a box for a young girl to come find.
And now the fire is not pouring down a throat,
Nor in the attic of that once life-full home.
That fire is in his little girl, who forgot how to dance and whose dreams still haunt her, the one who forgot what it means to laugh.