To the boy beneath the floor


When the old masters painted dead children,
they were given wings.  There were golden skies
and smiles wreathed the faces of angels.

You were never a painting.  You were 
repetends of "sorry mummy, sorry mummy"
"I'll be good, I'll be good"; her newest crush 
a metaphor for bruise and break.  These walls
were your stanzas; the floorboards your envoi.

She was busy making more poems to bury.
Your elegy broke screaming from her lips.