Of Drifting Empty Shadows Poem by Mark Heathcote

Do you, remember my sisters?
The roof alcoves full of doves
Their little beaks like small pincers
Wormed-out stars, like rosebuds.

In their feathers, spring weaved silver
By summer those threads were gold
By autumn the scene a spilt-pitcher
Of drifting empty shadows doled.

And then the alcoves were sealed up
By men who never loved or cared.
The following spring lurched shrugged
Forward but I was quite, unprepared.

It tears into my heart my sisters
How we too now have alcoves shut
As if to ask where flown these winters
Who wormed-out the rosebuds plucked?