Night Crawler
What a smashed glass heavens
for her glossy body to break out into.
Her corrugate, limb slithers
her head emerges from black like Orpheus,
leaving her tail – like Persephone, below.
You call her yeth worm, lob
night crawler, the intestines of the earth
a slithering nullities,
you say that her love is just a slippery coupling
of two coiled crescents, slick against each other
oily links on a chain.
Don’t you know she turns the earth for you,
lets in air, angels?
The stars are too bright,
the earth is warm.
Down she goes to eat the dark
hand maiden of hades, swallowing stones
like hard, grey truth.
Anna Saunders is the author of Communion, (Wild Conversations Press), Struck, (Pindrop Press) Kissing the She Bear, (Wild Conversations Press), Burne Jones and the Fox ( Indigo Dreams) and Ghosting for Beginners ( Indigo Dreams, Spring 2018). Anna has had poems published in journals and anthologies, which include Ambit, The North, New Walk Magazine, Amaryllis, Iota, Caduceus, Envoi, The Wenlock Anthology, Eyeflash, and The Museum of Light. Anna is the CEO and founder of Cheltenham Poetry Festival. https://annasaunderswriter.co.uk/