Flick Book for my Aunt Copyright © 2009 Rob Lock

Thrum the pages: see two trees
flicker into single symmetry,
until a canker kills one off;
the other stranded now
between the earth and sky.

Further down: shrunken lady
shrivels into little girl, hides behind
a tree, talking to her mother’s ghost:
becomes entangled, and invites
the bogeymen to come and play.

They come with stop watch, time sheet, test sheet,
come to pass and fail you;
come to check you, peck you; wreck you.
They are always male.
Turn your head a second, you will find
they’ve pulled your skirt up, pulled your pants down;
they take you from behind.

Oh we can spin the cardboard disc
and place the bird inside her cage -
but can we free her from the fears
that buzz, before the final page?