• Vol. 03
  • Chapter 04
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Thoughts on being led by a title

Yes they’re almost certainly American;
his denim dungarees, her pinafore,
their, slightly puritanical, faces
tempered by early morning milking
and harvesting ‘til sunset.

But the only hint of ‘Gothic’
is that window, something of a frippery
in a clapboard farmhouse,
with its blind pulled down
so no one can see
what lies within.

And somehow,
one word conjures
a third inhabitant,
the daughter/dragon,
son/shape-shifter, safely
shielded from the baying hordes
by a lace-edged blind,
a mother’s love,
and a father who’s pretty nifty
with a pitchfork.

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