Eyeing up the empty seat,

she sat next to me,

a sweet little old lady.

She drew a breath, and talked non-stop.

My daughter-in-law says I’m nasty,

I’m not, I’m just proud.

She tells me about her childhood,

the blitz bomb that blew her fat aunt into the air,

one foot above her fireside chair.

My daughter-in-law says I’m evil.

How dare she, I’m just particular!

She tells me of her Airedale dog,

although, untaught, he did great tricks,

he’d eat with the cats, and begs when he sits.

My daughter-in-law says I’m a       b-i-t-c-h.

I don’t like her much either.

She tells me of the girls and boys,

wartime friends, of climbing trees,

broken wrists, skinned arms, and knees.

My daughter-in-law says I’m cold and cruel.

I’m just stand offish.

Then she’s back in the present,

to the pigeon on the bird table.

Suddenly a Goshawk…

She wears her poetry in her hair,

and her bare stocking feet.

Blue nicotine stained nails

show her terminal habit;

cold cobalt bitten lips

where pen has split,

bleeds into her skin,

just as her words,

bleed through,

her muse.

© Kate 10.04.2014

by Alexandra Carr-Malcolm

Photo courtesy of Photopin

You said you loved me from the start,

and in your hands you’d hold my heart.

So I will write a hundred lines,

and I will write a hundred times;

I must not be too literal.

I must not be too literal.

I must not be too literal…

So when you say you love my hair –

adore the sparkle in my eye,

I have no reason to believe you lie.

So just for you,

what I will do,

I shall make a gift to you.

My lustrous hair I will cut,

and Subha like my eye will pluck,

and in a box with my beating heart,

tied with a ribbon and a bow,

to you, these symbols, I bestow.

© A Love Poem 08.03.2014

by Alexandra Carr-Malcolm

(photocredit – photo Pin)