Cracked
When people say your skull cracks like an egg,
it doesn’t. Not the Humpty Dumpty fragmentation –
compared to that, it’s unspectacular. A sound
like a dropped watermelon, the fall, the slightly
meaty thud. A possible loss of consciousness,
your vision vague, taut skin split, an unexpected warmth
of blood. The gathering wetness on tentative fingers
now permeating hair and floor. When you close your eyes,
hot sparks confetti the dark behind your lids.
Bone meets stone, in a smash of numbered heartbeats,
a sudden kick of pain that stamps the breath
from your lungs. You’ve forgotten how to move
until deft and gentle hands raise you, nausea gathering
like a landslide. There are no words, but tears as you crumple,
a beacon of relief as he folds you to his chest.
He wants to summon all the king’s horses and all the king’s men
to put you back together – and they can. They will.
So all that remains is a faint bloodstain on the flagged floor.
Lesley Quayle is a widely published, prize-winning poet and an editor and folk/blues singer. Work has appeared in The North, Rialto, Tears in the Fence, Prole, among others. Her latest pamphlet is Black Bicycle published by 4Word.