<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Stonecutter<\/strong><\/p>\n What tool is best to slice the skull apart, What will that stone look like, held aloft And neatly the scalp is sutured back together <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Kitty Coles<\/strong>\u2019 poems have been widely published and have been nominated for the Forward Prize and Best of the Net. She was joint winner of the Indigo Dreams Pamphlet Prize 2016: her pamphlet Seal Wife<\/em> was published in 2017. www.kittyrcoles.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Stonecutter What tool is best to slice the skull apart, to split it neatly, cleanly as a melon, and winkle out that small stone at the temple, cuddled up like a frog in its deep-mud winter burrow, growing fat as its skin sucks in the life of its host? What will that stone […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[138,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18380","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-2019-poetry-picks","category-prose-poetry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18380","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18380"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18380\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18381,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18380\/revisions\/18381"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18380"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18380"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18380"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nto split it neatly, cleanly as a melon,
\nand winkle out that small stone at the temple,
\ncuddled up like a frog in its deep-mud winter burrow,
\ngrowing fat as its skin sucks in the life of its host?<\/p>\n
\nto the light, the air drying the ooziness from it?
\nLike nothing much: it withers like a vampire
\nwithout its sustenance, exposed and bald,
\nand corrugates with age remarkably fast.<\/p>\n
\nand hair grows over the wound like a field of corn.
\nAnd in the warm grey fluid under the flesh
\na similar stone is busy birthing itself
\nand soon will thrive and nestle like its forbear.<\/p>\n