Nook

When she took the nurseling
from its crib
it kept silent as a wheel of cheese,
tiny livid lips pursed
as if in distaste at its plunderer's low birth.

She wrapped the babe in swatches
filched from the pantry,
where Cook stretched muslin
over tins of treacle and candied dates
to keep the rats from feasting.
She recalls drawing one by its tail
from the cornflour,
clog-rigid and white as an alabaster saint.

Now she lingers
by the cold inglenook
and hefts the baby like a log,
thinks of setting it down in the grate
amongst the forgathering ashes
and having herself
a roaring fire.

From the hallway, the grandfather clock's
long pendulum clicks like a flintlock,
marking time until the next whist drive
and she flees,
out of the great doors,
out across the courtyard
and the hoarfrost-brittle lawns,
the babe tucked beneath her arm
as quiet and warm as a new loaf.