Edge
We will run prints in the sand
down to the rock pools
come up jagged with emptiness.
We will walk the rounded wall of
lobster pots, post
a stone through every hole
incanting hopes.
We will toe the water where it’s
coldest, testing the blueness of veins
until we are pale with regret.
We will smooth our path home by
attrition, leaning into
the swell.
How not to stargaze
That long summer month when
the sky caught alight
I bit dense black cake
from the mouth
of a bad lad
but did not fly.
His dreams screeched past
on flaming tails but
my bare soles stayed grounded.
I dug my toes into
powdered peanut brittle nights
rolled back my eyes
tasted sweet dark nuggets of midnight
sparked up a poem
rolled tight.
Of Trees
I grew from the apple tree
sometimes clinging like mistletoe
sometimes waiting for the right gravity
like a bitter Eater.
Shaped by the holly
my whole life tangled forwards
into many places
I couldn’t breathe:
no footholds
no nests so
I borrowed others’
pushed children ahead of me through
sticky leaves
full emersion
like regression therapy
backwards.
Someone's little sister
with a weak name
always reached the fir tree top
me down below planning my
angle of catch.
At the end of the garden
laburnum fascination
hung with poisonous bridesmaids
little girls’ ponytails
I would rub along its bench
lick your finger hope to die.
I will scrub school bark with crayon stubs
lash a tyre swing to
the public trunk my children smile from for photos
I will smooth
the knot in me that
betrays my many rings.
I grew from the apple tree
sometimes clinging like mistletoe
sometimes waiting.