Oh Saint Esther,

what will you do now as they

dismiss you from their service,

your public face as you shop for the family linen,

worn out through expectation but with your secret

safe, as you hold your master’s balls

in a vice-like grip, as they know your closet wish,

your overwhelming desire to cause mayhem

with a flutter of the eyelashes and a pillow

over the family’s mouths at night

when they aren’t looking, just practising for when the big day

comes around and it is finally legal for you

to clasp their hands in silent prayer

and snuff their lights out.

Once and for all

Oh Saint Esther, what have you done

to make sure that you’re not accountable

to the aftermath you helped with your

precariously minded boyfriend,

the one who helps himself to more tea and biscuits

in the parlour below stairs and who can’t help

but live with decadence on a tenner a day.

Saint Esther drop the act, drop the mask,

somehow you will survive for every street

needs a pantomime villain and as you work

your way to the next house without even dropping your draws

full of your belongings, you hold your master’s balls

in a vice.

Ian D. Hall 2015