The East Wing
My footsteps echo across the marble floor
as I follow the tak tak of the caretaker’s stick.
Above, the last of the evening light burns
in the cupola and I can just make out
the glass cases that jut from every wall.
We pass an iron cage of stuffed ducklings
who follow their mother across a Perspex sheet.
I peer inside but the caretaker grabs my elbow
and I trail in his wake of drivel and pricking steps
till we reach a pale statue at the end of the hall.
The caretaker turns and looks me in the eye
his voice is dry as breadcrumbs, thin as a draught:
‘Do you remember your promise not to touch?’
I nod and he presses a button at the base of the plinth.
A glow spreads over the statue and it starts to revolve.
Her eyelids flicker open – forget-me-not blue
her breasts are pale lilies and her dress
is the soft cascade of a beech hedge fresh with leaf.
She holds out her hand – I look round at the caretaker
he shakes his head and grasps his cane with a shiver
but she just smiles and I reach forward, it’s like
slipping a hand into a summer river.
Something creaks behind me, slams shut:
the caretaker has drawn a knife from a classroom desk.
He advances, tilting it slowly from side to side,
I cast about me, wrench a torch from the wall
cleave the air, wave it across his path
drive him backwards, down the street of cages.
I trap him in a corner but he slips
out of a window.
I stare into the night,
scan the dim outlines of stump and boulder.
At last, I fasten the casement, feel the weight
of a clutch of keys that dangle at my belt,
smell the scent of lilies at my side.
Rowan Middleton’s work has appeared in journals such as Acumen, The London Magazine and THE SHOp. He currently teaches Creative Writing at the University of Gloucestershire.