Skull-Shaped Lover

Skull-Shaped Lover
by Lily Childs


There is more
than bright colours
in her wardrobe.
There’s the head
of a dead man too.
He peeks through flouncy blouses,
winking in pink,
smirking at blue.
She found him by the roadside,
detached, quite
non-chalant.
Grinning at passers-by,
spitting at them with lies
about how he got there -
laughing at their replies.
He prefers the dark, he says;
likes to laze in her
cotton and silk.
His milky eyes suck in
tints and hints of greens
and reds.
He licks the hanging fabrics,
bites off trailing threads.
And when she’s home
from the office,
kicked off her shoes,
fed, bathed and nude
he calls to her, sweetly
“Miss Suzie”
until her hands finger the door,
when she joins him
behind her dresses.
She strokes the tresses
of his cold, dead head,
kisses his mouth and then
tenderly, 

takes him to bed.

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