<\/p>\n
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Shadow Child<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n What has that child been doing again?<\/p>\n Don\u2019t tell me: snipping out shadows,<\/p>\n all shapes and sizes, making a mess.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n No doubt there\u2019ll be little silhouettes of us,<\/p>\n with our teeth and happiness obliterated.<\/p>\n Are we never to be spared this?<\/p>\n <\/p>\n She hides herself away for hour after hour<\/p>\n while we wait for her to go off like a siren,<\/p>\n to publish herself, to show us up.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n And that stare she gives me,<\/p>\n fixed on something beyond my shoulder.<\/p>\n What is it she\u2019s so fascinated by?<\/p>\n <\/p>\n As for how many times a day she washes herself<\/p>\n I lose count, the plughole clogged with shadows<\/p>\n I have to steel myself to deal with.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n What has she to wash away?<\/p>\n It is beyond anything. If she only knew<\/p>\n what she was doing to us.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n This obsession with shadows.<\/p>\n She finds them no matter how well hidden.<\/p>\n She flaunts them in our faces.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Worse than that, the journal she keeps<\/p>\n fat with shadows, sticking to every page.<\/p>\n To think her hands did this.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Her hands looming with shadows,<\/p>\n that flutter all around me<\/p>\n and will not be brushed away.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n David Mark Williams<\/strong> has been published in several magazines including South, Envoi and Orbis<\/em>.\u00a0 His debut collection, The Odd Sock Exchange<\/em>, will be published by Cinnamon Press in 2015.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Shadow Child What has that child been doing again? Don\u2019t tell me: snipping out shadows, all shapes and sizes, making a mess. No doubt there\u2019ll be little silhouettes of us, with our teeth and happiness obliterated. Are we never to be spared this? She hides herself away for hour […]<\/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":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6942","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-prose-poetry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6942","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=6942"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6942\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6943,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6942\/revisions\/6943"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6942"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6942"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6942"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}