What Grey Has Done Poem by Mark. A Heathcote

I have seen what grey has done
Beyond your lounge, your wallpaper
Beyond patchwork quilts wet with tears,
marked with mascara

I have seen what grey has done
To the sapphires in your eyes
To the sandbars in your heart that push back
exposed during low tide when you show
you still have some remaining fight

I have seen what grey has done
Walking carefully in your own shadows,
frightened to step out into the sun
Pacing a self imposed prison,
a tamed malnourished animal
still deemed dangerous,
with a look of hunger on its face

A bookworm devouring a tragedy page by page,
till only a hardback cover is left of its heart
A corn doll crafted from the last sheaf of barley
before a famine came home to bite — a shearing knife sharpened to fleece the remaining gold in her hair.