Madeleine Browne

It is the liminal hour:
the traffic begins to retreat, light giving way to dusk.
Woman turns to witch.

This all seeps into the ground as she walks proudly home
(three sewer grates in a row
especially for the bad luck)

Along these streets, the trees have more protection than her.

She eats at the paving stones
where their roots have fought for breath,
the weight of her heels fine-tuning how
to distribute the pressure; each
break of her ankles is a masterpiece of engineering.

The bins from the week before still burn
with a film-screen haze, as cinders leave behind
their columns of smoke, opaque as truth.
A breeze picks up the ash in apprehension,
as it curls around the air.
like her fingers curl around her keys,
like an extension of herself;
needs must.
If she could grow metal she would.

She would look prettier if she smiled.

The pain ready laid out for bed,
she is undressing (sensibly) for her own night
when she feels familiar grooves brush her fingers.
Shuffling around, she finds the
indentations in the mirror,
red wire marks underneath her breasts
deep enough to stain and not draw blood.
Outside her wastepaper bin still smoulders,
signal fire to a war-torn dark -
she thought she had already burnt her bra.