Requiem for a Snail – A Poem

My feet are moving so fast

rubber soles on runny pavements.

I am breathing noisily down the neck of the street

hands in pockets, eyes away from the cat-skittered shadows

and I do not see the snail until I step on it.

Crunch.   I’m sorry for breaking you

but I can’t stop.  I move 

from light

to light

to safety

and the motionless blue is no place for a lone swimmer.

In the dark, the streets belong

to the easily-crushed.

I imagine how my spine might 

fold, might be taken apart 

easy in someone else’s soft hands.  

Suburbia sleeps under thin cotton

the houses uncanny, awake

empty window, an eye; each numbered door, a gurning mouth.

I feel a figure loosen itself from every

ivy-hung and rain-rubbed wall.   The turns

I make are sharp, and each pulls the air from my lungs

into frightened gasps, aimed over my shoulder.  If feet were to

follow mine, to twist as I do between streetlight and silent 

dark, if a will was to set its sights on my ribs and elbows 

it would be exit stage left.  Leave no trace.  

Curtains would not twitch if I screamed.  

Teach your children to question every narrative

to think that silent house does not mean slumber

when the walls sigh in their sleep.  Abandon your ghosts

you who walks home late.  Take no 

lifts from strange men; take no easy breaths until you 

are locked in.  I feel my heart on my tongue

when I open my front door and join the town

beneath the surface of its indigo quiet.  No-one rises

till seven.  Cars are passive beasts, asleep at the houses’ heels.

There is always a light on in at least one window, 

flickering,

failing,

out.  

Daisy Harris

Accompanied by a beautiful photo by Emily Worms. Find more of her gorgeous work here: https://www.instagram.com/emily.worms/