Rag and Bone

We’re in the cellar – six feet of earth below
the berth of the sun. The air is sour, choked
with dust balls and the smell of pressed flowers – home
to our rag and bone collection
of junk. Here, fragments of our past
sunk beneath dust resurface – broken shells,
toy boats and the water-logged faces
of old photos. The ghosts of childhood float
round this mute room as if passing through
the chambers of the heart. But it’s this debris
of memories that keeps us anchored still: for we
have always been hybrid creatures,
fixed in double exposure; the flint-stitched
children of junkyards.

But despite this jumble of spareparts
and all our patchwork surgery,
there’s something missing -
for if you put your ear
to the floor, you can’t hear it breathe,
and the chest in which we rest
is wooden. Outside our silver-tongued sleepscapes,
these walls are dead; vaulted - and there’s
no message from beyond. The lips
of our bric-a-brac limbs twitch
without sound whilst we founder
in the depths
of our materialist-mothership
wrecks.

Now we long for rebirth:
for the sweet smell of earth,
pockmarked with rain, the feel of grass
between toes and the freedom of growth -
blossoms burgeoning colour and opening, opening
to the pulse of the world. Whilst here, behind glass,
nature’s papered cousins, her blistered sisters, fold
and curl, hiding their beaded hearts
from the daylight that would shatter
their plastic prisms; their stone-cold hold
on life. The same chains that blind us,
bind us to this shadow-barred prison.
This four-walled womb.

We are running out of room. The air is too thick,
too low, and we are forgetting how to grow.
Rag doll daughters, we will breathe water
until our seams split – when the coiled stair
will fold open, jut out -
and we’ll break

into air

.

* * *

My entry for The Written Revolution's Born Again Contest.

This originally sparked from a theme we were given in creative writing group which was 'opposites', but it has gone through a lot of changes since that first, rough draft - which basically spawned the third stanza.Since then it has been through many, many changes of tense, voice and title ('Children of Junkyards', 'Shipwreck Sisters' and 'Rebirth of a Rag Doll', to name a few...) - hopefully all changes for the better.

Any feedback / con crit. etc. is, as always, most welcome. :)