Jennie E
Owen

           It stood like a silver filling in a village of broken teeth

           worn out from the day it was hauled in, surrendering 

           under the weight of the hills. She too

           is too tired to lean straight.

           Scour handed, red faced, she passes

           eggs and rolls, the coffee jug a mere

           extension of her arm, raised

           to pour, whilst dreaming all the time

           of setting one foot before the next, away

           from the rolled sleeves of her mother,

           her father’s belt.

           Burgers bleed white fat; she flips

           to thoughts of the city. ‘Perhaps

           I will steal you away’, the stranger says again.

           Then snorts, ‘Would you like that, little girl?’ He rattles

           his cup against the saucer. She pours again.

           He comes in every day now. She knows

           he is no more free of Hilldale than she is. But all the time

           her pale, naked feet dance away behind her eyes.

           Outside, the air is a slab of cold.

           A dogs runs past, body lost in the fugged glass,

           its bark a ghost.