<\/p>\n
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The Seventh Car Will Be His<\/strong><\/p>\n As the\u00a0raindrops collected on the glass <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Sue Finch<\/strong> now has some poems that have been published in the real world and this makes her smile. She loves North Wales, the sea and being lost inside a film. She is currently completing her\u00a0MA with MMU.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Seventh Car Will Be His As the\u00a0raindrops collected on the glass the old man\u00a0opposite strolled down his path. Kneeling on\u00a0the chair she watched all movement. Next door’s\u00a0tatty tabby sat on the kerb washing\u00a0methodically behind his ears. A crisp packet,\u00a0encouraged by the wind that brought\u00a0the rain, turned a somersault and she\u00a0wondered if […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[136,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14504","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-2017-poetry-picks","category-prose-poetry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14504","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14504"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14504\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14506,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14504\/revisions\/14506"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14504"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14504"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14504"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nthe old man\u00a0opposite strolled down his path.
\nKneeling on\u00a0the chair she watched all movement.
\nNext door’s\u00a0tatty tabby sat on the kerb
\nwashing\u00a0methodically behind his ears.
\nA crisp packet,\u00a0encouraged by the wind
\nthat brought\u00a0the rain, turned a somersault
\nand she\u00a0wondered if it felt its freedom.
\nTime had\u00a0halted in their house since last night;
\nShe didn’t\u00a0want to hear her breath, admit
\nshe existed\u00a0or have to move from there.
\nOnly when her\u00a0brother came to kneel too
\ncould she\u00a0exhale the sigh that needed to
\nescape from\u00a0the jail of her too-taut lungs
\nIt will be alright, he said, sparing her
\na glance.\u00a0Are you sure?\u00a0she asked not looking.
\nThe seventh car will be his, just you see!
\nShe knew she\u00a0did not want to see the truth.
\nThe truth was\u00a0the rabbit hung in the shed,
\nThe truth was\u00a0the claret blood dropped from its nose –
\ncongealed yet\u00a0fresh on the stone floor. The truth
\nwasn’t quite\u00a0covered by half a blanket.
\nMultiples of\u00a0seven came and went and
\nthe old man\u00a0returned. Not noticing them
\nhe shut his\u00a0front door and stayed safe inside.
\nHe lit the\u00a0front room then darkened it again
\nwith his\u00a0smoothly drawn pleated curtains,
\nThey both\u00a0knew he was still there, just hidden.
\nBut so too\u00a0was the lifeless hanging pet.
\nThey sat\u00a0watching, waiting, not yet crying.<\/p>\n