Rien de rien
You now believe you know me.
You send letters laced with praise,
stories about your good daughter.
But I remember I was like the girls
you hated/ a flirt/ crazy cause you were
his birth the only good thing I did
with my life/ not-wanting-to
-live a provocation
Between the strokes,
true to form, a void
between abject and accusing
I´m all but nothing
like you, a reminder
of words conveniently forgotten,
no fight worth fighting anymore
Signed this truce three years ago,
cradled my sorrows, absorbed
all truths crossing my path
I have birdsong now,
gentleness, unshrinking violets
and warmth, wild snouts digging for
traces of Jerusalem
Alice
She was five back then,
red-haired and freckly,
a wild girl who bit
into the lids of yoghurt
pots with sharp teeth,
didn´t want to comb
her hair, didn´t want to
go to bed, could scowl
with the best of them,
a tiny rebel with a cause.
So when she was allowed to choose
her first pair of shoes, no questions
asked, she didn´t choose the Mary-Janes,
the dainty red sandals, the pink
lacquered pointy- toes.
She chose Doc Marten boots, black,
laced up her wiry legs
and stomped through the house
and through life with brazen delight
at what it had to offer.
I still know her.
She is a grown woman now.
Forever that hair though, those
freckles, the spark of those boots.