Cissie
There was this article
about encephalitis lethargica,
and suddenly I remembered Cissie -
with her face all heavy
and thick - never smiling
and the peculiar way that she walked like
a dog with three legs,
shuffling, slobbering all over the place
with her smell that was sweet and was stale.
Somebody said she’d got
sleeping sickness - after the ’flu.
Olive Rose, who was lovely with long yellow plaits,
who ran like a faun, she said,
‘Name suits her - she’s dozy enough’.
We laughed. Cissie stared at the ceiling
with her wild, wide eyes -
behind them, the chained prisoner,
the iron mask, the locked, forgotten dungeon.
Page(s) 60
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