04-28-2017, 03:47 PM
Penelope Vade from Haslemere
while he’s away with work
she waits
a package comes
from Belfast
the smell tells her
what her eyes refuse to see
when she pulls back
the cotton-wool blanket
seven men decapitated
her army husband
and mailed her his head
when she goes to Belfast
working with the Woman’s
Peace Movement
the same seven men
come and rape her
she crawls bleeding
across floors to swallow
a bottle of aspirin
from an ordinary
kitchen cupboard
dead four days when found
she wakes me at night
with her questions
Did I die for love? Was I
a coward? Whose is the crime?
while he’s away with work
she waits
a package comes
from Belfast
the smell tells her
what her eyes refuse to see
when she pulls back
the cotton-wool blanket
seven men decapitated
her army husband
and mailed her his head
when she goes to Belfast
working with the Woman’s
Peace Movement
the same seven men
come and rape her
she crawls bleeding
across floors to swallow
a bottle of aspirin
from an ordinary
kitchen cupboard
dead four days when found
she wakes me at night
with her questions
Did I die for love? Was I
a coward? Whose is the crime?