FORBIDDEN. Our parents warned
us about playing in the craters
where once we found a child's shoe
still laced and shiny red.
Weeds sank their roots
between the crumbling bricks.
Rain water dripped from broken
architraves and spouting.
Winter: snow covered
the improbable disarray
of houses bombed and shattered,
still-life inside empty rooms.
We scratched our names
and the date on walls
once inhabited by friends
and neighbours. Week by week
warmth seeped up from the ruins:
the stench of death, slightly suggesting
what had once been the homes
of children like ourselves.
just now her hands upraised
towards a single spray
of cherry blossom
new green leaves touch
her coal-black hair
bound in a top-knot
her eyes closed
I think she would like
to step out of her heart
which beats so fearfully
against the brocaded silk
of her kimono
and the paper-cutter
whose scissors snipped
this moment
dissolves into the mists
of time. nothing contains her
but the one who sees
the heavy blossom
of her loneliness
bending past her
leaving
a faint scent of cherry
in her hair