After Tumbling

Jack went mad, eating jelly with his hands
while Jill got into knitting.
Their matching chairs had matching wears
from years of non-stop sitting.

A broken back and punctured lung
had stopped them in their teens.
Their youth, a list of wish-we-coulds
and staring into screens.

Now their skin is paper-thin
and dripping from their cheekbones.
But every day they carry pales of water
round their care homes.

Boys Night

At the bar,
admiring cocktails
you will never try
because lager is manlier
and your friends
are nearby.

Mother, Woman, Other.

Bones blush with beatings of twelve,
She curls at the corners,
Woven from fragile frame and paper skin,
Rotten teeth and hand-me-downs,

"Did you take this, girl?"

Then damp, deadened,
Nerve endings burnt into numbness,
Dressed in silent smiles and lowered eyes,
Privately pained and publicly veiled,

Daughter.

Five fingers frayed at the tip,
Worn from penury, sorrow, slog,
She is laced corsets and pressed seams,
Turned beds and polished gold,

Housekeeper.

From waning wax grows adulation,
Hushed words wrapped in needle lace,
Legs, hips, and ravelled hair,
Sourdough and submission,

Wife.

Inside she moulds without mutton,
Scarcely moaning when wood meets frame,
Nine months and life-long,
Sponge baths and crimson palms,

Mother.

Shall duties die at her side?
Perhaps in nights of liberated soul,
Of rallied voice and whitened fist,
Of yes and no and yes once more,

woman.

In darkness brews the loudest truth,
From painted lips with staple holes,
She is power and undiluted mind,
She is courage, she is sagacity, and she is

Woman.