Poem: Cramped for Time

Leonora Carrington inspires another poem. This time The Old Maids is to blame....

Old maids devour it.

Consuming the years

They’re giants now

A century inside them.

In this cramped house,

Once an airy mansion,

She squeezes cagily

Between spry minutes.

Scarce hours to skip free,

Years fill up this room;

And tight against walls

These steam-cooked days:

A week of vegetables?

Fancy the whole season?

She touches them not.

Even the nice young maid

So charming, beautiful….

She grazes the ceiling!

And offers a decade:

Unicorns in eel sauce.

Oh to slim these seconds

Sickle the tiny tots of time.