Ague
When it comes, it will scratch away the surface
of Fen, release the secrets of our soil.
It will sing its lullaby over a girl’s bones
at the bottom of a village well.
Its tongue will rouse small forms
to hatch in the eyes of a dying mare.
It will dry its claws along her dorsal stripe.
For my father, it will lay bare the hemlock.
Elisabeth Sennitt Clough, PhD, is an alumna of the Arvon/Jerwood Mentorship scheme 2016 and Toast Poets 2017. She was also a Ledbury Emerging Poet 2017. Her debut pamphlet, Glass, was a winner in the Paper Swans inaugural pamphlet competition in 2016. It went on to win Best Pamphlet at the Saboteur Awards 2017. Sightings, was published by Pindrop Press (2016.) and won the Michael Schmidt Prize for Best Portfolio. A poem from that collection was highly commended in the Forward Prize and published in the Forward Book of Poetry 2018. Her second full collection At or Below Sea Level is a PBS Recommendation. Elisabeth is editor of the Fenland Poetry Journal. www.elisabethsennittclough.co.uk