Clarissa McFairy’s most recent poem to appear here was Curtsey to a King (August 2014).

Five-Star Mansion
By Clarissa McFairy

She makes her bed
meticulously
Sheets billow
as she flings them up in air
like a prayer
and lays them gently
on her mattress:
the cold brick paving
of the Post Office
I see the big step
leading up
to where she will sleep,
undercover,
and understand her pride:
she has moved house,
from rain and wind,
and open sky,
into a mansion
Five stars twinkle above