Endings
after the soil exhibition at Somerset House
first i go to finitude while you favour plenitude & birth the source beneath our feet
i recoil at the abject the never-ending cycle of leaves under loam a seedbed for eggs
or spawn this going on & no space for heaven or things to pause or find reprieve
i protest say how when i’m gone i’d like to rest before the choice to return & go through
all this again you sigh as though that’s absurd & endings are just endings we’re mulch
& nothing but endless fucking
mushrooms with your books on toadstools & fairy folk your vision risks nihilism
cells that collide & divide tumours that do whatever they want they too are life
sweet parasites that through a microscope are stellar nurseries solar discs star-stuff
but you insist on star-stuff not just
see a wellspring of microbes microorganisms & minerals go on a rant about mycorrhizae
rhizomes symbolic of a way beyond capitalism
i recall black gold how it began with the wearing of soles that sever us from the cosmos
you gush about mud & marl the morphology of roots how trees are upside down
trees talk to each other like neurones & neurones in tight-knit neighbourhoods
your tears fall over microfauna robbed of enclosures worms in macropores movements
like refugees or the recently evicted
while i’m with muck & the matrix the womb as tomb the putrid metaphysic no room
to resurrect each thorax each springtail’s spark just nodes & networks in the mire
with mould & midden till your arms reach out like tendrils in hope of binding my soul
Patrick Wright’s poems have appeared in Magma, Poetry Ireland, Poetry Wales, The North, and The London Magazine. His debut collection, Full Sight of Her, was published by Eyewear (2020). His second collection, Exit Strategy, was published by Broken Sleep (2025).