Crushed
She was only a little woman
five feet nothing in nylon stockings.
If I stood sideways they’d mark me absent.
Lightweight in her youth
the heaviness came later.
See what you did to me she’d say,
scar stretching red across her belly,
this is where they cut you out.
So when one day she accidentally
trod and broke my napkin ring,
a silver christening gift,
I kept it as it was — distorted.
Anne Symons comes from Cornwall. After a career teaching deaf children and adults Anne began writing poetry in retirement. She completed an MA in Writing Poetry at Newcastle University and the Poetry School in London. Her debut pamphlet Shifting Sands, was published by Littoral Press this year.