Serena Malcolm

If you try and lift the edge
of the dregs
of the unspoken,
You’ll spy it there
– just lying there –
blebbed and broken,
A token sliver,
An oaken whisper,
Perhaps hinted once but never said,
Once clung like lead
from a tightrope
with every high hope
gleaned and bled
from that damned stone,

That stone!

That stone
that broke no bones
(but that once was
diamond
and now is ash)
was cached
by the final straw
of the jumping broom,
Entombed
beneath the carpet pile,
A vile menagerie
of odds that we
could never seem
to
reconcile.