Poor Girl
by BECKY LONEY
‘She doesn’t know she’s dead’ they said,
Pale blue room, hospital irons.
Sheets pulled neat up to hands and face.
Waxen, white, looking to me as
I came to feed on truth, but none to be found as yet.
‘We think it’s suicide’ they said,
My ear pressed to the door, the words
closing down life before, opening to a roar.
‘I think she’s dead’ to my brother,
‘don’t let them in’ the others, messing about outside.
‘All stand’ a voice said.
Court room, unexpected in panelled wood
Journalist scribbling local tunes, woman found, long dead.
A reach to my Mum, pushed off in grief,
Train journey alone, a shaking, howling night.
‘Can I make a new Mummy out of wood’, a little voice.
‘Not really sweetheart, she won’t come back’.
A photo tenderly held under fading, oozing cheek.
Little face washed away in dying hours,
A pile of notes ’it will help, you know, with the funeral costs’.
‘You don’t look like your sister just died’
Weak smile, what to say, who to grip?
A time for play, for parties now, come on, join in.
Haunted nights and trickery,
She doesn’t know she’s dead, no-one’s told her, where is she now?
‘She’s popped back just to visit her little one’
‘Are you going to tell her, or am I?’
You’re dead, you died, you did this.
A half-whisper, a breeze, she drifts.
Over time, all I can remember are her hands.