Madeleine Poem by Levie Warman

I imagine the much-fingered remnant of your last family days passed in one direction whilst you exited in another.

That beneath this fabled chronicle you lie in tender repose or parade your defiant imprint from corner to corner.

Leaving some soft sign on the walls as you go that sparkles with occupancy and chatters in rags.

Then, eyes shut and in muted obedience, you go with pin-point accuracy to be lost in the darkness of some communal sin.

Your brutal absence and baffling passage left even the tidal response; and the headlines ebb as your hollow path goes to ground.

Dull to the obedience of facts, earnest hopes swish to some remote standing as the current drags at your inertia - limp.

Chat rooms rove to other lives and the thread bears little to grab resembling truth or dignity.

The accusations drain to the occasional faint whisper and the posters are pasted over near empty halls.

The fashionable voices are dumbed as your headlines burrow into archives as your face in the pillow.