My Neighbour’s Garden
written by: Jenny Middleton
I know now, that it was Ellen’s swing
that swung through those night waking years
it was only the wind that swung the strands of chain
and the worn seat through the lengthening shadows
while I lay curled in bed imagining
an intruder’s steps moving through night’s crumple —
my mother’s voice, hushed and graven in the hall—
spiralling upstairs thick with the news, that the girl
from next door had collapsed and died at school— the empty
swing seat and its strands of chain restless
in my thoughts as I think of how I’d held
her kitten that same day and let its sharp
claws graze my skin while washing
dried on a washing line, ready to be
used again, all the while my mother’s voice
is talking on, hushed and graven in the hall.
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