Broken Children

 

I went looking for them

In the empty room

Where the sad music was playing

 

And  a woman’s voice was singing

Of the deaths of children.

 

There’s a single window

Hung with cobwebs

Where half sketched faces

Look in through the glass

 

Seeking their childhoods

Those lost toys.

 

They find them laid out on a table

Neatly arranged

Hands, feet, heads, mouths

The folded skin suits

 

But the smiles are left out.

 

In another room a child is laughing.

Here there’s no such sound.

Your brother is painting his night world

Your sister is sleeping in his cold bed.

 

What is it you’re whispering

Across these polished spaces?

What secret fear flutters behind the mask?

What fury flaps its wings at your back?

 

Stop all this nonsense

Crawl back under the sheets

Your mothers and fathers don’t know what they do.

 

But when the lights are switched off

And the bedroom door’s locked

And nobody’s watching

You can come out to play

 

Set the silver top humming.

Tell the scary tale.

 

 

 

David Calcutt is a playwright, poet and children’s novelist. His latest novel The Map of Marvels is published by OUP. He works on a project making poetry with people with dementia and is currently writing a play for Midland Actors Theatre based on stories by Chekhov.  This is his website.