The plan of the house sits in the woman's brain. She lies, quite badly hurt, under kilos of plaster dust,
roof tiles, floorboards, bricks.
Somewhere, also under dust and tiles,
lie her daughter and her daughter's daughter. The boy has gone away, sent to the country with the other evacs.
Thus the tiny golden chains connect, even under dust.
They wait, and I wonder now
if they hear anything - sirens, voices, the roar of the departing plane, maybe a Henschel or a Junkers Ju 88,
or if silence fills the ever-decreasing space where they lie, fighting to keep drawing in breath, as carbon dioxide and carpet particles are exchanged in the process called diffusion.
Silence would be worse, I think.
Their brains would fill the emptiness with thoughts, as minds tend to do - the sort of thoughts no one wants to have.
And it goes on.
And on.
And on.
Hours later, a feeling of lightness
as the roof is lifted off the house.
Someone finds the old lady, and just before she dies,
she tells them where her daughter is, and where her daughter's daughter is.
I'm imagining now, as she starts to float,
she sees the rescue, the lifting, the shame
as the daughter's daughter confesses she has wet herself
while the girl waited in the dust, the silent dust,
and the men say it doesn't matter, nothing matters except she is alive,
and Agnes, the old lady, floats and gives
the dirty, sobbing, frightened child
one final kiss
