Jane Wallman-Girdlestone

Broken Toe’s First Day Back At Work With Shoe

To hear you crunch,

When into leather pumps

I prod you, broken

            Pinkie toe bruised grey

Is surpassed by the squelching

Ache, as insole collides with

           Unaccustomed precision

Against the walking wall of shoe’s 

 sturdiness.

A pathological gloom descends.

We hobble on, until

With gritted teeth I release

The wrongly jailed, throbbing bird

Of flesh and bone to cool,

Free to spread and swell,

She’s happier now.

Unconfined.

She knows my mind.