The Scullion

[Rudi]

The Scullion

She shelters within the demilitarised quarter

And mourns for Catherine, her infant daughter

Catherine had drowned in two feet of water

She can’t discard the clothes she’d bought her

Squats in the scullery hours after curfew

She’ll tell you of things that she never knew

Talks to Catherine while she’s looking at you

Listens to within, and talks to the view

She has a postcard of Ponte de Lima off season

She calls it her chapel of rest for some reason

It’s a pretty picture frayed at the corners

There are priests within that she calls mourners

Sons go like lambs to the slaughter

The scullion’s wages, war has taught her

Is thread the tangled lines war has drawn

Where victims perish faster than new ones are born