i
The moon races east
through pastures of clouds
flying west.
Rumbles from her past
trundle through her brain
as the frail lady fidgets
near the midnight hour.
She hears whispers in the wind
and the nurse, pert as a cat,
wheels her charge
into a darkened room.
The storm claps its agreement.
The nurse purrs, Into bed, Roseanne.
ii
Behind a curtained window
branches thrash and whip.
Stern, the voice of thunder
and she cowers,
hunched on a pillow,
views in the flash of mirror
pain of another time –
a slip of a girl
running late, beret bobbing,
climbing a darkened hill,
rain lashing her face.
iii
In a shaded hallway,
a drunken father squats
then pounces: To your room, Rosie!
He sprawls her on a bed.
She screams, Daddy, please …
daddy, don’t!
Rosie chews terror in her pillow
and, at some stage, his belt falls
limp, to the lino’ floor.
A door slams.
Alone, Rosie hears
the distant stroke of twelve
and wide-eyed, she whimpers ...
a small animal in shock.
iv
Roseanne curses black winds of night
and a half century’s grieving
on the road that went
nowhere in particular
leaving her, a tree sapped of juices
with one leaf clinging, still,
to a memory of spring ….
v
Perhaps a kind word,
a small gift …
quiet whispers lost
to wild gales of age
and the moon pointedly
angles west
beyond her midnight hour.
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