She seems to prefer the dead ones
with their amber faces, pressed
against glass as if trying to peer
through knobs that won’t open.

In her dreams, they have hair
of black lacquer, eyes of nut-
meat or Turkish delight. She
imagines their cries (so like hers)

in the clutches of night,
so like polyps their eyelids,
so like rootstalk their spines
as they settle in bottles,

newborn cuttings in brine.
If she weaned them on God-
frey’s, if she sung to them
bough-breaking rhymes,

she could help them to be
stoic, to be brave; they
would not long for life,
like that puppet whose nose

kept defying. His maker
needed saving, but she
does not. Fie, even crickets
can be taught to keep quiet.