Slowly pacing the beach,
in age now not in sleep,
it’s a cemetery
but I’ve come to dig.
Gulls wailing what’s inside.
I’m alone again at night
in a waking trance
searching for that doll
I dropped, the blood-smirch
on its white wedding-dress.
My prints always lead back
to the cellar of that house.
A nine-month sentence stretched
to life on its camp-bed:
the memory condemned.
I chatted so readily then
hadn’t learnt suspicion’s martial art,
his affection the breadth of air
and hands soft as powdery sand.
Soon became my jailer, my interrogator.
Buried me under his sweaty bulk
so my frenzied fingers tried
to take flight and reach up
to the single slit of light.
Dead birds washed up with the flotsam.
by Mike Jenkins
from This House, My Ghetto
Rambling At The Bridge Head 