Changeling
Away over the hills the girl’s father is shapeshifting –
grown grey and yellow, wheezing against the pillow’s soft sink,
feet that have polkaed and gavotted, tangoed and waltzed
vaulting him now, into the submission of the couch.
Across the levels – spun with golden geese, acres of rain,
silver-gilled fish sing songs in the streams –
of her mother’s crumbling teeth,
days unventured abroad for fear of meeting Cucullin –
and the girl – lodged in a strange place, homesick for
dripping valleys, ferrous-scented, wolf-steps shadows
on the barefoot path to Grandma’s house, is conjured
to a woman, blinking, the other side of ripeness.
Ysella Sims is a poet, writer and producer. She writes with a focus on nature and connection and produces literary events and workshops as truth&dare. She published her first poetry pamphlet, you are here, with Sandrock Press in 2021 and regularly publishes a series of Life writing called Roots & Redsand at www.ysellasims.com