Tumbelarum Poem by Richard George

Step-trip - 'Molly! ' -
but she's not a scathe, swaddled
in her parachute of lovat
Danimac. Restored
to the mantelpiece of grandam
she frail-smiles, snug
in the cribbage-notch of gravity,
her world still spinning.
When she dies, she will stumble but
sideways - no bolt of shock -
where Time is a coat she hangs up,
unlike before as chrysalis to a butterfly.
Women slip lissomer
than soldier oaks on tarmacadam,
drips of blood thin
on their Donegal sleeves, alone and clutching