Poetry & Prose by Carol J Forrester
She has the same look about her,
or so it seems
when she tilts her cheek just so
and the tides shift,
shrink in on themselves
so ashamed by her disappointment.
Uncanny, how similar she seems
reflected beside me.
The official report blamed ‘a torrential downpour’ for Ichabod McGuffin’s horrific suffocation beneath two hundred tonnes of hillside.
However, there were rumours about his mother, and the hairs on Eddie’s arms rose as he pulled up outside old lady McGuffin’s bungalow. He shook the feeling off and fetched the shopping from the backseat.
‘Such a good lad,’ she smiled, opening the door. She watched him set the shopping down.
‘Yes,’ she said again, and handed him her payment. ‘A good lad. Just the sort we want round here.’
Ink will fade
given long enough.
Even stone weathers,
back to rock
with the help of time.
Why do that to yourself?
Play around with perfection,
even if it was only skin deep,
and the smoothness of these curves
turned your stomach at night,
when dusk settles its hands
either side of your hips,
presses into the grooves
where his tools worked you
into beauty.
Mounted you his sculpture
for all men to see.
Do you not appreciate how
his love made you
into a woman worth seeing?
With a smile steeped in pomegranate wine
you laughed,
tipped your head back,
closed your eyes against the sun
painted in place
in a sky that never greyed,
unlike me
who seemed to leech all colour
from our Elysium,
so perfect in the way it held you,
in the way it caught me
like a trap.
