The Hat of Straw

His chest did smell of man. The hair tipped into my ear and tickled there. I cannot know how it became that way, all inside like that. I wondered what had become of the day. How it knelt before us like that, arms open and melting towards noon. Nothing quite like that white light.

Your feeling and feathery fingertips under my ears. The lobes feel like baby toes. Did I see a little down at your cheek? I drank from a puddle once and it tasted of pebbles and see-to-the-bottom. It was cool and like no other drink on this earth. It tasted of foot-fall. Pool and before it even had water in it. Where did you get such a story?! Oh, the lies you do tell.

I carried home water in my shoes to show my mummy. Drippy brown leather and one sock all black and grit. Tippy red knees with blood and a tiny robust bitty right in the broken skin. Where I'd knelt to grin into the splashing puddle. Lippy drips on the chin and nightmare wobble reflections of toothless smile and when will they grow? Tie up at the back the hair that would later lead to all sorts of unearthly trouble and handfulls of pull-back and look at your neck!

Piles and piles of it lay on the floor as it was hacked off. You don't go telling your lies and puddle-drinking! Look at the state of your shoes!

Toes pushing out of leather on one foot. In protest. Little Molly there, by the white tub, all hair-shorn. She littlegirl. She lost. She in the puddle there with her reflection. One sock down.