20th April 2020

cloud-speckled sky
encouraging the cornflowers
next door's rats

© Rachel Green 2020

Are you still alive, you rotting hag?
I've heard nothing of you now
in twenty years or more
though I saw your epic poem about me
and thought it good--
except for the inaccuracies
(I never did that thing you said in number eight
and seventeen was fantasy.)
I see you sold the house and moved at last
to Norfolk (there's a county to avoid)
yet still you paint
which I recall was the focus
of many of our falling-outs
I never did enjoy those pastel folks
with pouting lips and fingers splayed
and staring eyes that in the bonfire woke.
We shall be done at last, I feel,
the moon has set the tuning of the wheel.

© Rachel Green 2020