Two Mountains
What is destined will reach you, even if it be beneath two mountains.
What is not destined will not reach you, even if it be between your two lips.
Imam Ghazali
I have moved two mountains.
There is rubble everywhere, pissed off
goats, dust in the air like a bomb’s
gone off in a hoover bag
and I am standing here, with destiny
like an old sock, held in both hands,
held out so it might catch a little
early sun
and all that shows up are some bobbles
where I have worn this old life thin
trying so hard to be somewhere
or someone else.
Jane Lovell has had work published in a variety of journals including Mslexia, Poetry Wales, Envoi and New Welsh Review and is a regular contributor to Agenda and Ink, Sweat and Tears. Her work can also be read in forthcoming anthologies Mill (Templar Poetry) and The Lies We Tell Ourselves (Liquorice Fish Books). She has recently won the Flambard Prize.
Note: An earlier version of this poem appeared in The North