Postcard Princess - sketch

badly shaken, the eldest daughter left:
an empty bed strewn with pine cones

a couple drowned in gold embrace
shrouded with white linen

a Japanese servant with painted face,
peers through window open

the superior cat all in grey
hunts grace beside ornamental pond

in patience that daughter collected
and pinned these on her wall

until her jealous sister leaps to covet
the space she left and burns them

sibling revenge of images traced
now ash bones


Newcastle-under-Lyme, September 2005