Links Of Blood (Poetry)

You went and left a ragged aching hole
I tried to fill by buying a sweet doll
a newborn with that special baby smell
that hung in folds — flesh wrinkled pink as shell.

I hugged her to me as though plastic could
undo the hurt — fake better or make good
my ruination by your sudden bomb
which had been ticking quietly all along.

This substitution failed — she didn’t fit
her synthesis, though close, not up to it
despite the cunning detail in her hands
she fell far short of what the heart demands.

I was the dummy thinking she might serve
to plug the gap, still raw, each twinging nerve
attuned to loss and desperate to replace
with pseudo flesh the child that had your face.

Back in her box, she’s coffined in the loft
and perfect — undecaying, vinyl-soft
but hardly loved as though she came stillborn
the links of blood long-broken. Breath all gone.