Fairy Dell
Riverside section within Stubbylee Park, Stacksteads.
Sophie Lancaster was fatally assaulted in the park in August 2007.
The ground is digesting
the park in its underbelly.
All the things that used to shimmer
are being swallowed.
The rust dappled skate-park
does not welcome me,
the ground there is hungrier
since it happened.
It has already taken so much:
my first memories of the earth,
her blood, her last words.
I find Fairy Dell, ten years on,
find it sullen and negatively charged.
I wonder, is it still Fairy Dell
or just another riverside road?
The wooden shoe we carved at school
is licked with rot.
The witches’ cauldron is clogged
with dirt, our well of old water
we’d stir, chanting, casting.
Behind it, the stone circle hides
behind ash trees, the stones half-chewed
by the earth. It will keep devouring
until there is nothing left
but the orange sky,
tiny rotting organisms
stagnating the fringe of the pond.
Lew Kelly is a recent graduate of LJMU. He has previously been published in Cake, In The Red, 1533 and ISWrite. He’s currently publishing Lifejacket, an anthology to support refugees. His poetry aims to re-enchant adulthood.