for weeks I have been calling
every time the same message
echoes of her smiling face
I know it so well

I've worried
My mother too
my daughter lives on a shadowed edge
dark she sometimes enters

a council estate
no-where
no hope no community
vacant dog-shit grass

13 years ago
she entwined with
an apprentice of the devil
drugged up and down the M1

she lived in a passioned craze
in burning wild screaming laughter
didn't re-appear for years
until he dumped her

she still loved him
feathers torn from her wings
in his hat
and eyes picked out


nightmare where she came to live
in daylight and darkness
our voices distant calls
from across the sea

we tried to reach in there
but she was lost
a living death
greaving her endless loss

she picked up the phone
she was crying
I'd seen her child picture on my shelf
it shouted me

"Call me dad! Call me!
She was crying
"what's the point
what's the point."

what would you give for a child's laugh
for that gangling run
for the silly joke
what would I give

everything to give it back
for of its truth
of innocense to live in
the sunshine

she's in her prison now
it's not that I can't find the key
I can't (and I have looked)
even find the door.

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