Downstairs.

He was five when she fell
From grace.

They had been lost in a world
Of soft toys and silhouettes
When they came too close
To the ledge they’d always been told
To avoid, and the steps
That were not meant for playing.

He would blame himself
In later years. He was
older, wiser;
She would always be three.

He never told them
That her bear fell first, dropped
From his fist like a stone
Plummeting into the ocean;
Revenge.

He hadn’t realised
That she would go after it;
His grip on her dress slipping
And her limbs cartwheeling
As she flew, free
And landed at their father’s
feet.

He clutched a shred of cotton
As he looked after her,
Admiring her crimson halo
And thinking her beautiful. 

Mr Morgenstern

He lives in the basement flat downstairs,
ready to babysit whenever she calls for
him. He has a propensity for black knitwear,
and his hobbies leave his hands smelling of sulphur.
Her children love him; he comes and teaches
the boys the art of anatomy, presenting to them,
with divine patience, the scars left behind by the stitches
they put in him after he fell from the heavens;
they trace gently over where the raised flesh is,
naming parts. The girls sit on his knee and listen rapt
to stories of snow-skinned, blood-lipped princesses
tempted by succulent fruits, who never fail to attract
the happiest of happily ever afters. It seems that
he has the best of intentions; he calls the little ones
“angels”, laughing at their innocence – but he stares at
their mother with eyes that look nothing like the Son’s.

The musings and boozings of 32a
The sacred place on my grandmother’s road
lies upside down: the bedrooms are
downstairs and the kitchen is above.
Said kitchen is hazy with the smoke of
a thousand cigarettes and laughter delirium.
All of the chairs are broken and there is
very little counter space. The table groans with bottles.
If you wish to flatter The Lady you
must comment on the fullness of her fruit bowl
or offer her tropical bubblegum that she can burn
to the dulcet tones of dimmed lights.
The walls are awash with clichés and paintings done in ash
and the tops of cupboards jangle as
and the triumvirate of girl, boy, girl, (boy) walk by.
The entrance to this kitchen is always open;
their chambers are perennially shut,
usually forgotten by those cut-eyebrow
fools who frequent them in their stupor,
until a bottle of whisky later circumstance snips the strings
and sticky smiles and unbrushed curtains of
hair invite you to descend and fling open 
the door and drown in the cutlery draw
among the honeyed asian spoons.

To begin the evening upstairs and find yourself below
slumbering in the dragon’s lair is
how it must be; the natural progression.