HER MOTHER DOESN'T KNOW.

A GIRL AND HER DEAD BABY SISTER AND GRIEVING MOTHER.

Rosina’s baby sister died.

The cot stood empty

in the darkened room.

 

Don’t go in there

her mother said.

Rosina opened the door

 

and peered through

the gap instead.

The toys were still there

 

by the pink pillow and cover.

Leave the room alone

said her grieving mother.

 

Moonlight shone upon

the place where baby sister

once turned her face

 

and smiled or made

her baby noise.

Quiet now the room.

 

Unplayed with

the idle toys.

Mother cried at night

 

and often in the day

and stared through

the window at the far off bay.

 

Father was away

in some distant war

keeping his head down

 

in some foreign land.

Rosina’s baby sister

was buried deep

 

beneath the ground

in a small white coffin

dressed in a ghostly shroud

 

with songs sung sadly

and tears in the crowd.

Rosina peered through

 

the gap of the door

at the cot

and moonlight’s glow.

 

She’s seen her baby sister’s

ghostly smile

but mother doesn’t know.