No phoenix, her pile of twisted sticks reassembles on invisible cords.

The puppeteer, sheer, concentrated Will, pulls.

She rises and rattles into shape, teeters and lurches forward

on to two willow sticks, two of bone, knotted in purple.

 

Clicking sticks, sticking slippers, slipping steps

accompany a cacophony of coughing as she weaves her way

to a bag of crusts, brown and wholesome, carefully kept

for the avaricious magpie and the delicate sparrows, visitors each day.

 

Reliable as the rising sun, each to the other comes,

quelling the emptiness, padding out the hollow need

with satisfaction. She hooks the plastic over bending thumbs,

dips her head and adorns her folded neck with the pendulous feed.

 

Her face is small; her lips like string, her marbled eyes sit in sallow skin.

She shuffles along the well-trodden path, gravel embedding her soles,

her mountainous knuckles stretching white and thin

as she grips her lifeless supports, cooing softly, nearing her goal.

 

Lustrous and agile, petrol blue thuds at her felted feet,

jerking its head as jet stones fix on the expected gift,

and dainty brown dances to her heartbeat,

waiting as her curling hands unfurl and grasp the crusts. So stiff

 

are her joints, but with a surge of pleasure she raises her arms, and stretches her neck,

praising life, releasing the confetti in a showery tribute.

Then, with cracking knees, she embarks on the slow homeward trek

bathed in the balmy calm of the daily commute.