Isobel Thrilling
The Invisible Child
At times, she thought she was a ghost;
being fed with
boiled cabbage, apple pie and bread
didn’t seem fit for spirit-food.
Her condition was intermittent,
there was an occasional response,
quite often
her family recognised she was there.
Then the gaps became extended,
she wasn’t aware
they deliberately drifted through her,
unnervingly, they moved away
from her edge - a hole in the air.
Like some pencil-drawing that was
being erased,
she learned to expect disconnections;
developed a gift for fading
into the wallpaper - a fantasy garden.
She acquired new shades of being;
loved luminous greys,
charcoal, pewter and white,
disintegrations of snow,
the silver, tabby-cat graphites of the rain.
being fed with
boiled cabbage, apple pie and bread
didn’t seem fit for spirit-food.
Her condition was intermittent,
there was an occasional response,
quite often
her family recognised she was there.
Then the gaps became extended,
she wasn’t aware
they deliberately drifted through her,
unnervingly, they moved away
from her edge - a hole in the air.
Like some pencil-drawing that was
being erased,
she learned to expect disconnections;
developed a gift for fading
into the wallpaper - a fantasy garden.
She acquired new shades of being;
loved luminous greys,
charcoal, pewter and white,
disintegrations of snow,
the silver, tabby-cat graphites of the rain.
Page(s) 62
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