I Can Always Make You Smile

The Wild Peach of Angels

Lucy kept her dreams in pockets made of buttons
 where she hid frogs from the high ground of adults
 and knew the secret of setting plastic yellow ducks free
 on a pond: ”My garden is God’s secret heaven”
 she’d whisper to her doll as they shared
 daisy petals with angels and butterflies.

She’d run into the expansive splendour of rain
 like a visionary who understood its mystery
 of love and sorrow and breathe, in its stillness,
 the deep ancestry of wild peaches.
 She’d draw pictures of M: his wife always
 dressed as a coffin for her dead smile
 and hollow eyes; her glassy mouth could kill
 candles too, Lucy once told God in a prayer:”Maybe
 the angels could unfold her heart
 so its front door would not be locked for good..”

So, in the season when strawberries go begging
 Lucy left a gift at M and Mrs Coffin’s door: A wild peach
 of Angels and a drawing of a girl dressed
 in cottongrass, mending a smile shattered on the floor…

December 3rd 2010