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Penelope Shuttle

Newefangel (from History of the Child)

she’s turning the days too fast that child she’s clumsy as a cowbell doesn’t know what she knows she’s blowing her eagle-bone whistle she’s an owl in reverse flying herself home on wings of newefangel air she’s the cheek of the drawing-room the heck of the chicken house she’s born to black and blue she’s born to better than this Aunty will pierce her earlobes with hot needles Auntie will cut her hair take her to London for the day that child’s the winter of the century the thaw and the flood she draws her first breath like a sword she saws the house in half

that child’s from the land of the dead
she’s on her way somewhere else
our father sits on a cloud overhead
and I forget the rest