Inspired by Head Rolls Off by Frightened Rabbit.

Sunlight forgetting to breathe,

A fretboard splintering

Amongst the requiem of raindrops

Onto the street’s quiet corners,

Crates and canopies creak together

Underneath the night’s necessary downfall

Chalk interweaves

Into a child’s version of wings,

Whilst a nightingale strains towards

Its final chorus.

Paper branches and raspberries

Surround the songbird in a barricade;

Blood scours its wings like warpaint

Her basket scraping across the steps,

Like a magnolia tree against the morning wind,

From a clocktower’s precipice,

A flower girl sits as if before a stage

Straining for a flash of static grey

And brown plumage

Lilies and lilacs, drooping in scratched hands:

A lone feather, like a ceremonial sword

Held between shaking fingertips

‘For sale,’

The freedom to die quietly