| CASE TAPES Miss D |
‘Curious, one day, about the other side,
I made friends with an “Englie” behind the shed.
Like “Welshies”, they played by the railway track,
counted coal trucks as they passed
until we were giddy. Then we picked
sticky honeysuckle bracts
and she showed me how to pinch and pull
the flower’s filament through its style
and place the nectar drop on my tongue,
a vaccine for sweetness. It all came undone
for no reason in the toilets one day
when the game turned into strangling me
for treason. I didn’t think to resist
as the walls went screechy. I tasted rust
from the fire in my gullet, because I knew
it wasn’t personal, but a clue
to the trap that was sprung inside my throat
just waiting to catch me. So I kept
my eyes wide open, though my vision bruised,
and I watched as I died, mildly amused
by the fear in my murderer’s eyes. That grew
till the monoglot girl had to let me go
because her nerve failed her. I was nearly dead.
But I was the one with the rush to the head.’