Ten-Year-Old Girls

[cornflake]

We were murdered in the bathroom,
where the backing track of running water
would rinse out his memory;
wash the blood with towels and kitchen paper
off the tiles and those blinds
he didn't like that his girlfriend chose.

We liked her. And dressing up,
coating our mouths with Mummys' lipsticks.
Now we are a fairy story, Aesop's fable.
We were found near a stream,
washing us out; the moss, grass, stones
creeping up, comforting our baby bones.


Hattie Samuel



Note: this poem was, of course, inspired by the Soham murders that happened in the UK in about 2001. I think I was around 12 or 13, and I still vividly remember following day by day in the papers.