The teacher is an old spindly man. Grim, out of a Grimm’s tale. Scarecrow hair, thinning. Unsmiling.

The tawny clutch appeared

on high-heeled evenings only,

slept in a nest of white tissue.

She only speaks to me these days
through groaning floorboards in the night
and slammed doors.

No-one has seen a ghost while breast-feeding
despite the unearthly hours, the half-light

mad sing-song routines of rocking a child
back to sleep.

The furniture covered in once
transparent now foggy sheets
craft the room a morgue, and we
identity the bodies

And the yellow moths
like some strange throw-away
tissues used up by nature
circle the lamp hanging above.

I wasn’t in, so she left me a note.
Each word a tangle of broken ends, some oddly linked
to the next with a ghost trail of ink
from her rose-gold marbled fountain pen,
a rare indulgence she’d bought herself.

truth be told
part of me has lived
in this box of disquiet
for years and years
let’s see

Because a woman woke up
and her head had become a flower.