Wednesday, 29 June 2011

The Damned and The Saved

Bound up, faceless women
- crow-winged and windswept -
look for the unborn

(the pale serious child
with a chip on his shoulder)

marking X’s with pieces of chalk
on the backs of unsuspecting
hand-holding couples, homebound.

Will you tilt and fall on your side?
Lie there breathing; lie there as the moon rises?

So many of you, and yet never a trace
of your expirations.  Where do you go to die?

Past sundown, members of the flock turn circles,
float above the treetops, fall silent as nightbirds.

In the morning, not a cloud in the sky.
A few crows preen themselves at the side of the road.

Shirts raise empty sleeves on the blind woman’s clothesline. 
She opens the door and calls, “Entrez, mes enfants.”

© Sophia Roberts
all right reserved

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