At night, in your frilled white gown
you hold your candelabra high.
Pipes clank-rattle,
tarnished taps gush blood.
Flies buzz, or, upside-down dead,
crust window sills.
From the attic, a silent scream,
rumble of empty rocking chair
on worn wood boards.
Downstairs, faintly, a piano.
When the morning sun sings
through stone window frames –
even after toast,
fresh tea and kedgeree –
you shudder at shrieks
from your cellar.
Some things remain there,
tethered.
Louisa Campbell lives in Kent with her husband, daughter and a motley collection of rescued Romanian street dogs. He first poetry pamphlet, The Happy Bus, was published in 2017 with Picaroon Poetry. Her second, The Ward, was published in May 2018 by Paper Swans Press.
Lonesome October Lit 