Submission Poem by Anne Leaver

Tonight the sizzle of twigs in the old stove
teases silence from shadows dancing in fire.
Upstairs cats wait on the landing for sleep
to climb the steps to the steep-roofed dormer room:
'Come away, come away into this valley I have made
of dreams glittering green, sparkling through the dark
of the looking back, the looking back, ' is what she sings
edging toward the morphine dark, easing
into the warm, sweet pool of sleep.