Ritual
You used to wind yourself in curtain turning taut,
look down at your feet, pirouette
as the fabric hugged you in.
I’d idle as you called me
from your hide, and draw
the other curtain. And unspooling
the fabric as I called your name,
you’d turn in the middle and be found found found.
We’d do that daily till your mother took
to waking before us and pulling the curtains wide.
Turning, we’d look out across the garden
onto the fields, the glistening bed,
to see whether Jack Frost had arrived.
That world was a frozen apple
sliced down the middle – inedible, enchanted
perishable should you only see it.
Matt Bryden is a teacher living in Devon. His most recent publication is The Glassblower’s House (Live Canon, 2023) an exploration of fatherhood against a background of personal catastrophe. www.mattbrydenpoetry.co.uk