a visit

A Visit

Before you edge out
of my ken I taste ash on
Your cut-glass slipper

And smile: I know you.
You like to peck at lentils
Like a hearth-bound sprite;

Your boyish carriage swings
like a pantomime bundle
from a blackthorn stick,

Whilst in the oven
Wrapped in antique muslin and
Ribbons you keep your

Grim, blackened version
Unopened and unsavoured;
Like a stillborn rose

Locked in a sleeping
Tower along with two blind
Sisters bickering

Over the bloodied
Fragments of a looking glass
And a pumpkin seed.

And somewhere embedded
Between the pages your
Amphibious prince

Practices foreplay
On a comatose maiden
Whose drink was spiked.

Your role already
Bound and constrained by the force
Of your cold intellect

You squat among the
Embers like an uncooked child
Singing snatches of

Old ballads of wishes
Misused and menopausal
Rage in the dark place

Where your madness creaks
Noisily under the weight
Of a cruel joke

That left you brooding
There like a yeasty cake
Waiting for a wedding.