Chain of keys

Fifteen keys hang on a chain
The chain is joined and forms a ring
The ring is in a woman’s hand

She’s walking on the dusty ground
The dusty ground’s a dead end track
The neighbours won’t be coming back
Fifteen gardens overgrown
Fifteen houses falling down

The woman’s old and dressed in black
She keeps her hands behind her back
Numbers painted on the doors
Posters on the locked up church
Imagine what her eyes have seen
We ask but she won’t let us in

A key so simple and so small
How can it mean no chance at all?
A key – a promise, or a wish
How can it mean such hopelessness?

A circle is broken, she says