<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Woven In<\/p>\n
i.
\nOnce my head was off
\na new house was needed,
\nas though the stones had blood
\nso soaked into their porous,
\ngritty hearts that no water
\ncould wash them clean.<\/p>\n
The pond fills slowly;
\nit rains so rarely. The weed
\nwaits, with the one shark-eyed
\npike in the shallows. Men
\nbuild slowly, stone by stone,
\nuntil the roof shines in its<\/p>\n
dull, red brilliance;
\nfakey turrets crowing in
\nfat glory over the dry moat.
\nThey are a bold bunch.
\nThe wainscotting is shined
\nto a rich red sheen.<\/p>\n
ii.
\nIn another country women stitch,
\nbetween sharp white wings,
\nat raw canvas; threads coloured
\nwith saffron, spinach, beetles\u2019 blood;
\nshape face after face.
\nI get myself in there, somehow,<\/p>\n
with some \u00a0sleight of hand.
\nThey said I was a witch.
\nAt night I step down, taking with me
\nmy newly stitched head that is wiser
\nthan my old one. Corporeally,
\nI walk their halls, feet ringing.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Melissa Collin<\/strong> is originally from Manchester and lives on the North Norfolk coast. She studied Cultural Studies at NUCA and has worked in the book trade and as an editor. Her poems have appeared in various anthologies and journals. Twitter ID @melissacollin seaislighterthanthesky.blogspot.co.uk<\/a><\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Woven In i. Once my head was off a new house was needed, as though the stones had blood so soaked into their porous, gritty hearts that no water could wash them clean. The pond fills slowly; it rains so rarely. The weed waits, with the one shark-eyed pike in the shallows. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4199","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-prose-poetry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4199","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=4199"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4199\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4201,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4199\/revisions\/4201"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4199"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4199"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4199"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}