Blushing roses sprouted onto stone, wild and ‘free’, bound in sanctuary. It traced old mortar, where creepy-crawlys skittered through gaps to foggy blaze, left under slab, where sun did not dare shine. Crying and wailing, a husk of a woman sat atop tiny tomb- still as stone - mouth cemented ajar, grief-stricken. Hands that cradled with nothing to hold. Wind carried whispers of sobs -never to be heard-as there was no babe to nurse, to soothen cry. Mammy sang -crowing, keening- Rock-a-bye baby. Alike tomb ,where twigs laid called nest, egg was only hallow shell, consummation never given body nor flesh. There was no murderer -no eagle to prey- there was only it: death. It took youth prisoner, where flower flourished only to perish within womb, a rose with no thorns is without dam to shelter. Underneath Mother Earth- within tomb- laid hatchling, the only place dead can grow…