Poem-A-Day #259 : Lucy Looks into a Wardrobe

This is an erasure of the first chapter of The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe. I'm not entirely sure it works. But here it is.


Lucy Looks into a Wardrobe

Once
something happened
during
the war

There were children
sent away
because
of the country

The odd
afraid
night
trying to talk like mother

We've fallen and no mistake
this
anything
won't hear us

Doors empty
beginning to feel
an owl
falling so thick

Quite empty the
dead blue window
always expecting
woodwork

Cold queer
open
other light
coming

Strap

Strap (William The Conqueror Invades England 1066) 9/28

A body

on metal table

wrapped in

the flags

of the dead

Until

it is mummy

of color

Release it

into the water

or soak it

in honey

until soft enough

to eat

Scratch-Off

Scratch-Off (Last Magdalene Asylum Closes 1996) 9/25

These nuns sell some land

This is in 1993

The land developers find 155 bodies

Like some horror movie

They take the bodies and cremate them

toss them into a mass grave

These women

most of them just young pregnant

or mentally handicapped “socially dysfunctional”

They washed clothes and sewed

Weren’t allowed to talk

It started in 1767

30,000 women

most never allowed to leave again

Not one eye blinking

Not one word raised

for 200 years

It took a land deal

And the invention of cheap washing machines