Postcards
by Kate Foley
Slumbering on my mantelpiece
the Fat Lady from a Maltese tomb.
She doesn’t have to prove anything
or ever wake up.
Heaped as a croissant
whatever caused her to lie down forever
has left only a trace of red
ochre. Her neighbour,
the Hooded Lady, carved from the horn
of an unimaginable beast,
no longer smokes with cold
or listens to the bone flute
play a tune we’ll never know
if we’ve remembered
or reinvented.
Stone tools or pixels.
Tracks of long dead silences.
A bell ringing underwater.