Laura Cooper
Burnt Fruit
I drew the prickly yellow mixed fibre and wood
Blanket over my shoulders,
Small fingers catching in the crocheted squares.
Tied together with a rusting wooden peg
The silky man-made ribbon on this crib sheet
Was my royal livery, dragging through
The grass in front of the fumes of a
Petrol lawnmower, green and spitting.
We’d picked the daisies and the dandelions
Away from their masticating machine deaths
And sellotaped their wilting forms
To cheap yellow printer paper.
These were our fragile crowns,
Thrown up by every small gust
And circled by the thick linger
Of furry grumbling bumblebees.
The mordant aroma of torched car
Burrowed into our nostrils and later
We would inspect the orange and
Bubbled remains of that vehicle in the field,
Dressed in our pyjamas and plastic wellies.
In the photo with my grandmother we
Line up in wrinkled crowns and blackened cloaks.
My sister is crying into her princess curls
And I hold a tub of bleeding blackberries.
Page(s) 74
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