New Life

A shrine. White. Not a kink
anywhere on the bedspread
only concession to colour -
stained wood covers on the
inset cupboards. This
their bedroom for years,
it looks too virginal
to have created three children
too untouched to have ever
been slept in.

Back to a previous century
musty, dusty, webs entwine a bare bulb
in the workshed, banty hens
scratch and peck in a newly-made shed -
their home more modern than
that of the human who
looks after them.

She scurries just like a banty
tends like any gracious hostess
while he sits lord of all he surveys
with glinty eyes that miss nothing.
Her mother's death, my granny's passing
has lifted the weight off her shoulders
given her a new lease of life
like ropes unknotting and dropping
lifeless to the well-swept floor.

New life lives here after 68 years
of waiting, a life-time haunted.
The ghost hangs about only
in the dark corners now.

^

Biography

Ruth Mark is a licensed psychologist, poet and edeitor. Originally from a small town in Northern Ireland, she currently lives in the Netherlands. She has also lived in Scotland and in France. Her work has been published in diverse print and web venues including Riviera Reporter, Dakota House Journal, Poems Niederngasse, Snakeskin and many more.