Poem: Sestina For Elizabeth Heyrick

'For a sack of sugar, a boy the same age as me is bartered in the dark.'

by Steve Day 3rd July 2026

Where there is dissonance, she trusts the tone.
The worry written within each line of letters holds
equality as the cost of buying back what’s free.
This crowded house has open doors; not to let
lunacy in, but bit by bit, filch what night carries
beneath its wings. This is how she was told to me: