It’s best to count inwards from the outer rings,
all these layers of bark around my bite
too often gone unseen by those deserving
of my sharp teeth or even sharper words.
Evening is the best time for taking stock.
When sunlight settles softly across my back
and you have to really look to find
the lost marbles rattling loose in drawers.
I can reorder the library as much as I like.
It will be out of place soon enough.
Each new volume stacked into shelves
I will never truly fill.
Flesh parts so easily
when pressure
is applied.
Tongues often prove
more effective
than crowbars.
They break past
words like ‘No’.
Fire-dwarfed we all sit,
stand, wait,
drawing along timelines
scythe-eyed for news
or perhaps revelation
that this is all
just a dream, a joke.
Dust-tongued our words
dry up like sand
through an hour glass.
All gone and past
leaving only empty air.
A promise
cracked apart.
History pour out,
breaks the damn of grief
and dark-vowelled words,
replacing now with then
as what will be
already spread its roots
in the tear-culled.
Was I a plaster
you slapped on
to cover the burns
left by your family?
Something temporary,
to hide the harm.
Was he water?
More than you’d seen
all in one place
and so inviting
you were willing
to drown.
Did you lose me
on purpose?
Or did the currents
just pull us apart?
Either way,
did you notice
that I was gone?
She was legs, hips, breasts, and bone.
Same as a cow,
worth less perhaps.
Dredged up words
from the dark well of your mouth,
not ancient, just old.
“Ace”
a hiss,
curled around the syllable.
Careful,
you are wearing history
with no place here.
Tonight’s Quadrille prompt from the bar is the word ‘Ace’. I did a bit of a google search and discovered that in the middle ages, the word ‘ace’ could be used to be ‘of no worth’ or ‘bad luck’.
Carol J Forrester 
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