I once sang like you.

Hard, redolent, like an unfolded dream.

I used to call sweet demagogues

from the birdcage and bricolage,

where I would hold

out my hand in displays of brave persuasion.

And whilst you ate,

I fed too.

I would dance, and still do,

in fire-loops, in hieroglyphic boots

– acrobatics of the mind, less the soul.

I sit at a distance away from where I once used to.

Swapped my head for the shed

and bled my heart until it fell to the grass.

I learnt to ignore you

and at times believed in my success

but all the time you were the

one where all worlds meet.

The pleasure of new sounds,

simple tasks of delicate discernment

as I searched for a new music, for you and in you.

Yet early in the morning

I am ripped open

by your causistry,

the beat of all beats,

a Loss that puts rest to anything

and everything.

Who am I, but another daughter

sitting at the reprimand of another

Mother,

to the amusement and folly of the crowd.