Into the Dark

a poem

Lucie van Dam van Isselt’s Still Life with Little Shoes (c. 1920)

Little girl
You’ve no friend
But your teeth

You could never see
The trees for the forest
The blood for the poppies

Fist closed tight around your
Milk-wet
Love

Dripping like cracked egg
From the wrecked nest
You’d hoped to die in

To be alive is to be
Wasted
A wretched thing

Always
Going the wrong way
Into the dark

Looking over your shoulder
As you walk
Into the den