Angela Platt
Crystal pyramid
My bed was made even before my birth
It was destined that I would lie on it
Feather light downy days of youth
flattened as though they had never been
Trying to cauterise the wound
behind my back the silent flames mock dance
A white heat phallic phoenix probes
asphyxiating my fantasy
of how it might have been
Scorched curling embers
desecrate white sheets of innocence
Gathered crinoline pleats, rouched coverlet
masks springs that barb beneath
Two straight-laced pillows
sit cheek by jowl at a prim headboard
belying tossed turbulence of the dark night
Bowed yet unbending, square shouldered
and functionally dressed
I turn my back on the flames
not exactly in supplication
I try on resign for size
Rodin’s thinker, with hands wrung out to dry
Fingers intertwined, crossed bars
the window of my eyes a prison cell
I stare at the skirting board
cracked and joined, clumsily bodged
Two alien timbers
pretending to bond
Page(s) 27
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