• Vol. 03
  • Chapter 04
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Good People

He grips his pitchfork like a crozier
his glare direct,
confronting,
ready to stare down all comers.
She looks
elsewhere.

"We are Good People here,"
he says,
"tidy, clean,
every furrow ploughed straight
everything in its place,
every weed and wild flower
eradicated."
She says
nothing,
drops a wilting posy
in the bin.

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Good People

She makes biscuits
serves them for his breakfast
with bacon,
he pours molasses over them
sticky
clinging.
He stabs a rasher.
"Bred, killed and cured
right here on the farm,"
he boasts.
She fed her every day,
pretended, when it came to slaughter
to be busy
elsewhere.
She never told him
she had given her a name.
Such foolishness.

They go to church on Sunday
his overalls and shirt
laundered
pressed
she is buttoned tight
to the throat
but a wayward strand of hair
curling gently
has escaped.

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