Empire
The river has called for you. You step onto the light of day as you climb
out from a granite tunnel carved from the mantle. The water has formed
small grey pools in your feet and it soaks you. A pale spider is hanging
from a hollow tree dangling from its own silken atoms and you wrap y-
our fingers around it and feel its tension. The spider runs across your h-
ands and fingers and you turn them in the sunlight. You watch it melt i-
n the bright and appear again in the darkness. Its limbs are thin like hai-
r and you can barely feel it. Look at it. The river has called for you and
you need to answer. Your shoes have worn away and when you head do-
wn the shale path the rock wall turns from you. The ground has cut your
foot and the blood from your sole is mingling with the earth and its colo-
ur is changing. The hills are sloping down and the sun is muddled by the
cloud line forming. It means to punctuate the horizon with broken smoke
and jagged vapours and the air is damp and sticks in your chest and leave-
s moisture on your eyelids. You walk towards the heavy guttural river and
the water has thronged the shoreside marking silt wash across the bank an-
d dead leaf debris where it laps highest. The water bathes your bloodied fe-
et as you step into it and the current is callous in its rhythmic changings. Y-
ou dunk your head into the water and the cold migrates into your bones. Yo-
ur breath is sharp when you break the surface and you feel the cold of rivers
past and present and you think of every man woman and child who has stood
in this water and felt their heart race and their teeth chatter. The sky is now c-
learing. You look up and there is light rain falling. Your fingers look like river b-
eds. Beside you is the mountain.
Ezra Miles is a poet from London. His work explores the subconscious mind and is often concerned with the presence of unspoken violence within the family home. His poetry has previously appeared in Allegro Poetry and Poetry Pacific.