Bell at Seven — Part 2

Bell at seven. Bella leaps

up out from under duvet,

grabs peach-colored dress laid out

pressed on dressing table, skips

happy downstairs to breakfast

table through strewn mail, front porch,

out through flower garden and

drive, to car to school, mum at

the wheel.

The schoolchild crocodile

snakes, boys, girls hands held in hands

in quaint anticipation

of coming matrimony,

along urban kerbs, crosses

the pelican and zebra

crossings between traffic

lights and Belisha beacons,

led by lollipop lady

through danger to the city

zoo, to watch panthers prowl through

bars and penguins fill their bills

with fish and lions roar and

gorillas beat their chests, to

sit on benches out the back

of the rhino compound and

eat egg and cress sandwiches

and animal crackers out

of tiny plastic boxes

and sip pop through fluted straws,

as pink flamingos squawk.

Bell

is led off in the blood-stained

keeper’s arms, exotic scent

of hippo excrement, and

primate grunts and gibbons’ shrieks

and ululations: too young

for love, her silent tears cry

out to the whole animal

kingdom for mercy and sweet

relief from sin, as church bells

gather congregants in prayer

and children board the bus back

home for tea. Bell at seven.

*

Flipping back through the scrapbooks,

the fading Polaroids, the

power cuts and birthday cake

candles blown out, the strikers

huddled around braziers, as

hippies love and dance and hate

war, Nixon lies and Manson

orders family murders

and men’s boots stomp on the moon,

Bella curls up in the safe

space of the womb, the journey

over. The backward-ticking

clock unknits her wet fetal

tissue and unpicks her genes.

The coup de dés of onto-

genesis undone. Two dice

and seven is commonest,

plainness the default. Bella

slips back into a happy

nothing and disappears through

a pinpoint of pure non-being:

better for not being born.