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Dec 2010
In the space between walls
stagnant dust swells with manor house tales
of births and deaths, a ****** or two,
marriages, affairs and locked away shames.
We squint and we peer at moth eaten carpets
that hang from the wall, too delicate now
for tread underfoot, for stamping and squishing
and pounding out rows, unravelling structure,
whispers carry to the end of the hall
"have we made the right choice?"
"Please lower your voice,
I would find it too hard, but I can't know your pain"
The heart is merely a muscle afterall.

It was a hospital once, commandeered for the rest
of shell shocked tommies, basket case brigade
gone mad from the sight of vaporized mates,
claret sprays like champagne in traumatised hands
and they're there in the dust,
deformities rot in the space between walls
"and is this the right date?"
"yes" (I'm hoping we're late)
but an embryo is only a blob afterall.

A natural progression from soldiers to nutters
a bedlam, barbaric defective discharge
"if they wont agree then persuade them".
"Just do what is best".
Take the pill force the fluids
splayed over a bed,
and then throw out what's left,
the muck and the grief,
after scraping and clearing
the space between walls.
Written by
Claire Bircher
840
 
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