An image of a girl, smiling

A whitebread girl with small milkteeth

Sharp like a cat’s.

A narrow-faced woman with thin lips

A wide-stretched grin

Fixed. Pinched. Anxious eyes

Mistrustful, guarded – slanted slits under

Claw-slash brows

He loves her. He loves her long-limbed

Awkwardness, her stiff-necked

Elegance – the memory of how

She loved her cats.

Love. Memory. Shrill cries on the wind.

He takes in stray

Women and dreams

Of spilt milk.

 

WESTERLY, No.2, JUNE, 1987 77