Mama…

One staring eye,
the other blinks
like a beetle
crossing a marble.
Porcelain face,
flushed with rouge
and crimson
painted lips.

Hole in the wall
in the boarded up attic
of a Victorian townhouse.
Long forgotten,
until the mortar
crumbled around
the remains
of her dolls.

Dresses of lace
embroidered by spiders
with gossamer threads
and sprinkled with dust,
decay and corruption
deep in the depths
of the bricked up wall
where she left them.

A spinster,
no children
to call her own,
she collected
the beautiful,
fragile things
and kept them
locked away.

Until the day
that consumption called,
coughing blood and dying
she hid her collection
away from the neighbours.
Silenced their tongues.
Blinded their eyes.
Stilled their hearts.

The workman steps back
startled, confused,
as the bone white face
stares, blankly, back.
For deep in the recess
he swears that he hears
the rustling of movement
and clamouring urgency.

Light in the dark.
Decades of dark.
Playing in silence,
alone in the attic,
the ghosts of eight children
lost to the world.
The gurgling chorus
that whispers ‘Mama’…