By Esme Bell
Today at home I cut my nails
to the beat of Rickie Lee Jones
whilst my dad waged sense on Twitter
and my mum did a pagan ceremony
at the kitchen table, making a wreath
with wood and tissues of paper.
My sister tried on my clothes upstairs,
excited to be taller than I was then,
and peace lolled legless into me
like two hounds with silky ears –
feeling time brittled away, past, sullied.
In the valley it had rained but the sun
Came out, red-ringed, before dinner.