Demdike
A boy gnew me by a stonepit. He steemed
in th sun stone-waking, lighting trees like wicks;
his eyes were sofd as ash, and cities hymned
and chymneyed in the atlas of his sex.
I tricked in him, – unclocked all tocks, all ticks;
a debt that ploppd its anchor in my tchest –
nd 8 weeks fraille in rocking lihgt, I foamed
at the mouth like the sea. He ssuppd the moyst
unplundered of my underarm; he yessed,
impressed on me the braille of wouldlice
havocking the rocks.
I kept him at a cost:
he got with dogg my daughter, bent our house
toward a future wigged with cirrus,
fingernail’d with hangman’s lime. I died in prison.
Camille Ralphs started in Stoke. Currently Senior Poetry Editor at The Missing Slate, she was recently also Cambridge Editor-in-Chief of The Mays XXII. She has a few published poems kicking around.