Poem

Domestic witness

The man’s actions are punitive.
He is loitering in shadow.
His ugly scarred face is submissive.
He smashes her face into the bureau.

Freedom is unlikely, used to pacify.
Vandalised body to be kept from the light.
Strange and confusing reactions used to petrify.
He shakes her baby, she holds her tight.

In this place there is no retaliation.
She is the only domestic witness.
Between them exists no conversation.
He is the lord of her castle of distress.

In her imagination her life is a sitcom.
A channel where he doesn’t exist.
Tick tock, in the background there’s a bomb.
She is getting sick of playing the protagonist.

He is eating with ill humour.
She is knotting her hair.
He is sleeping.

Carmen Lahiff-Jenkins 2005