Rachel Bruce
Ancient stencils in pink and silver
dust the walls, faded from the sun.
The old shed smells of sawdust.
An image floods the empty space –
stamping these walls with my mother.
Her face, now lost, springs from mine.
At once a fairy castle and a tired hut,
I am a grown child in the presence of the memory.
My feet had almost forgotten the way.
I survey it all one last time.
Tomorrow the shed will be taken and burned.
Ashes to ashes,
dust to pink and silver stencils.
Rachel Bruce is a poet from Hitchin (UK). Her work has appeared in The Telegraph, Second Chance Lit, Eye Flash Poetry, Eponym Magazine, The Daily Drunk Mag and The Hysteria Collective.
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