The Paw-Trod Path
Along the paw-trod path
Narrow and dainty through the gorse
Where yellow flowers
Lie dim like fallen stars in the mist
Comes a silent visitor, hesitant
It licks its lips
A taste like vinegar
Humans of old and long ago
Their lonely essence gone
The heather-stepper flinches
Shy of memorial eyes
The castle ruined on the hill
The manse below with broken windows
No smoke at the chimney
Only the wind that whips at the gables
And the empty nests of swifts
Nudging open the gate, it sniffs
The garden is overgrown
Cow parsley four feet tall
The front door at the porch swings on its hinges
Frightened at first, it shies back
But, then, seeing the door ajar once more
It pads in
In the hall, the photographs are curled in their frames
The flock wallpaper brown with age
Light rectangles appear on the wall
Where paintings have fallen to the floor
As nails have loosened away
Through a dirty glass door into the kitchen
A female body, face-up, mummified by cold
Her icy fingers gnawed by time
Clasps a mobile phone to her breast
The last note she wrote
With her thumbs
Before the screen went blank
Was: "It won't be long now."
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