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Katherine Davidson

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Bonfire Night

I know
Only what I have been told;
That the ground underfoot I hear
Rustle, crunch,
Like crisps between teeth,
Is the clothes of trees that shaded me in summer.
The rags now lie beneath me
In unimaginable hues.
I picture the naked trees,
Their noses numb like mine.
Lucy tells me trees don’t have noses.
I feel the cold seep through my boots.
I know it is frost
Because it cracks like the sparkler
That I am not allowed to hold,
But Lucy waves it near me
And says she is writing my name in the air.
Lucy is my eyes.
She describes the fireworks,
comparing their shapes to familiar objects;
The dandelions I savour in spring,
The fountain in the fishpond before we filled it in.
They tried to keep me inside.
I did not want to be alone again;
There is no imagination
For one who cannot define reality.
I love Lucy.
She tells me I an beautiful,
But how can I be flattered,
When I have nothing with which to compare,
So nothing to prove her words?
I know Lucy is beautiful.
I touch her face and remake it in my head.
She is always smiling in my mind’s eye.
She thinks I do not know she wears a frown.
She thinks I cannot hear her cry.
I used to wish I were Lucy.
Before I realised that then she would have to be me.

 

(written at age 13)

Page(s) 93

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