Yule Tide
The sky burns trotter pink,
bladder blue, a skein
of golden chicken skins
pulled taut by giant needles.
Up on the hill the grass grows
as white as my hair, cold
fistful and clumped. I
stalk alone, muttering.
Ancient witches cartwheel
in energetic fury along
the dry skyline, their shadow bones
finger thin and twisting.
I watch them: layer on layer
of charcoal, grey and silt;
rice paper fine, pirouetting
against the setting sun.
* Charlotte Gann's The Long Woman was published recently by Pighog Press. She's had work in The Rialto, The North and Magma, among others.
Frost bite
Hidden from ice scabbed windows
I squat by the slats in the fence wrapped
in Christmas paper –
a hotchpotch of holly and ivy
rolled, sellotaped, tied with ribbbon.
Under its crackle breath drains
my blanched face, Siberian eyes latch shut
to keep out the wind. I want to claw
my way out, see birds swollen with snow
swoop from the coast, hang around houses
in huddles of feathers, trampling on roofs,
gutters, grass; a whole assembly
grubbing for worms, stale bread, sultanas.
They’re too loud; I bury my ears in drifts.
If you tear me open I’ll bare, what’s left
is a torn upper lip hoisted like a sail,
its gash all that remains of a smile.
You tell me not to worry; spring will come,
fill my body with flames. But the evening
is biting and I’m unwrapping: my ivy wilting
and the holly has hitched up her skirt and is
running as fast as she can down the garden.
*Abegail Morley is guest poetry editor at The New Writer. Her collection How to Pour Madness into a Teacup (Cinnamon
2009) was shortlisted for the Forward Prize Best First Collection
(2010); the title poem was previously nominated for the Best Single
Poem. Her second collection Snow Child is published by Pindrop Press.