I set out this morning
to take a pot of jelly to a neighbour,
caught a flash of white on the door next door.
A louer, it says: for rent.
Where have they gone, my little friends
who played on the slide and the swing?
You can’t rely on anything
to stay the same
except the mallow growing wild
and a small brown butterfly.

—
Vivienne Blake, a late developer, started writing poetry during an Open University Creative Writing Course in 2007. Since then her work has been published in various magazines and anthologies, in English and French. She lives in rural Normandy. Her poetry, fiction, memoir and quilts appear regularly at Vivinfrance’s Blog.