Today’s choice

Previous poems

Andy Humphrey

 

 

 

Becoming Hedgehog

(i)

Noises are louder now: the kesh
of tyres on tarmac slicked
with leaves. Rain’s drumming thunder.

My other self pulls at me,
pricks from inside. Limbs compress, ribs
tighten around starved lungs. I furl;

I shrink, a leaf about to drop
quivering from its branch. Spine arches;
fingers, toes close in.

My needle skin hides me
in lengthening shadows: my armour
against the dogs, the melancholy owls.

(ii)

They all tell of frogs
snogged by princesses, lanky green
specimens transformed
into slender knights.

But it takes a special kiss
to break a hedgehog spell, to make
that knotted ball of me
unravel.

You have to place your x
just at the soft spot
at the tip of the nose, the point
where all taste and touch and feeling begins.

Slip, and you risk
mouthfuls of bristles, bleeding lips
and your one and only chance
to see real magic at work.

 

Andy Humphrey has published two collections of original poetry, A Long Way to Fall (Lapwing Press, 2013) and Satires (Stairwell Books, 2015). He lives in York and works as a solicitor. www.writeoutloud.net

Jeanette Burton

What is this, a family outing?

Yes, dad, that’s exactly what this is, I want to say to him
as I open the car door, climb into the front seat,
remembering those marvellous trips to the tip at Loscoe.

CS Crowe

      Lines He lived next to the funeral home with his three daughters. A cherry picker beeps in the distance. I cannot see it, but I know the light is red. Who brings roses to a funeral? Rain rolls down window glass, but not here, only somewhere in the...

Carole Bromley

I don’t know why I went,
I’d already heard about the time
a colleague’s husband turned up
at the staff barbecue and punched him.