Prose and Poesy

By Merryl

SCENE: London 1920
There's a little girl sitting in the locked doorway of a vacant, broken house. She has a box of matches containing only three matchsticks. As the night falls, she strikes the first one.

There's a chill in the air.

And the fires light up in hearths
And homes.
The forsaken scum, in dark alleys roam;
While those with coin, warm their bellies with fat and ale.
Through the windowpanes, you see the pale
wretched, hard and cold
Eyes plead with desperate dignity
for a scrap of bread.
Mind the ice while you tread
in your new, fur boots.
The chimneys brim with soot
-faced boys of nine and ten.
choked up;
For a coin, they court danger.
For what is Christmas
But a beggar Christ
born in a manger.

There's a chill in the air.

Merry meet and merry part!
Merryl