The True Story of Lillian Rosendale

Lillian Rosendale

owned six bankbooks

bequeathed her by her father.

They totalled forty-four thousand pounds.

She looked at her books every day

running loving fingers over the figures.

Never spending a penny,

she dressed in rags and ate scraps

left over from others’ plates .

A stranger’s path fate had her cross.

He entered the same cafe Lily was meandering

looking for scraps, other’s leavings.

Ordering two rolls he went to a table,

drew some white powder from his pocket

covered the rolls with it,

then heartily ate one.

Ignoring the other he left.

Lillian immediately moved to his place,

ate the second

while holding her bankbooks tight.

Suddenly someone called

a man was dead.

It was the stranger who’s bread

Lillian was eating.

A sad and lost soul, the powder was toxin

he’d bought with suicidal intent.

Lily too had been poisoned,

and dropped dead on the floor of the cafe.

The bankbooks she had been lovingly caressing

lay on the floor beside her.

He died outside,

She died in.