Midnight Illness
Home is only ever found in glimpses,
the night-fragrance of a lover’s shoulder,
the warm throb of the pulse beneath the skin
of the throat, the green scent of trees captured
in the pages of the right kind of book.
You feel ‘home’ in a burst of pleasant light
that flares in the tissue hidden behind
the string-like nerves of your eyes. It remains
unnamed until the golden warmth consumes
a cavity. Melancholy swarms in
and then you learn that, yes, you really had
something beautiful — for a little while.
Bethany W Pope has published several collections of poetry: A Radiance (Cultured Llama, 2012) Crown of Thorns, (Oneiros Books, 2013), The Gospel of Flies (Writing Knights Press 2014), and Undisturbed Circles (Lapwing, 2014). Her first novel, Masque, shall be published by Seren in 2016.