Too Late
Too late to cross your fingers now, there's
blood on them, a splinter under the skin
and seven years of it, if you believe it.
You believe it, too, like magpies and the pull
of a full moon, or a new moon seen through
glass: you turn the silver in your pocket, wish.
And now, first day of a new month and you say
the usual words – too late to stop yourself,
there's breath on them before you know it.
Under your skin you feel the splinter, watch
the blood dry over it; wait for the lightning.
*Susan Utting has poems in the current edition of The North and was selected for The Times best love poems feature in February this year. Her third and most recent collection is Houses Without Walls, (Two Rivers Press).
