She came first through the trees:

a small glint amongst the poplars,

hoarfrost dripping from the velvet nubs of their antlers,

leaping fast to a shuddering pillar of flame,

her pelvis a cradle of jeweled tinder,

her ribs white kindling. A holy thing—

such furious unblossoming—and something profane.

I pressed my eye to the glass, the crackling dark,

saw her heart catch light,

blackbirds flap frantic from the forks of trees—

—woke shivering, sweat between my breasts,

my tongue in my teeth.

Every night then she came

in the stolen hours between caring and dream,

the children vanished, the drudging chaos of day

put to sleep.

I have no words to tell of the shapes she scorched,

the frozen lock, the copper key,

but that heat licked me raw as a wild love,

cracked the ice on my ribs and tossed in a flare.

All my life I have been a good woman,

compliant, neat, my children’s snow boots polished,

each snowflake of ash swept clean from my step.

I’ve worn obedience like a uniform,

the hoof of the iron cooling in my grate.

Yet I riled in the witching hour, tongue glittering.

My darling, I whispered to my own dry bones,

for what do you burn?

Three moons she has been absent,

though I wait at my window, the chill persisting, presaging snow,

and my longing rises hopeless as the carp in the pool.

I don’t know where she is living

or if she lives at all—

with women nursing in fevered sheets

or scrubbing floors until their knuckles ignite?

But by dark, when my sons sail the black cut

of sleep, and frost lays its terrible lace

upon the grass, when I am alone with my fretting,

with my dreams like black pearls in the clam of my mouth,

I press my fists to that tenderest wound—my soul—

and Christ how I burn.

Liz Berry

Laurel in the Berkshires

Sea-foam

And coral! Oh, I’ll

Climb the great pasture rocks

And dream me mermaid in the sun’s

Gold flood.

Adelaide Crapsey

Iridescent lizard

I’ve had enough

of chasing my tail

like an iridescent lizard:

frantic, frenzied, foolish,

reeling and slipping

in lunatic vicious circles

while I wait for the sun

to push through the ozone layer.

Fear is a many-planed mirror:

I look at my reflection

and see my face

mutilated

in its crystal waters

and my locks of stray hair waving

like a feathery anemone.

I’ve had it up to here with

being a person of limitations:

I want to be a chameleon,

a real one, multi-coloured,

with eyelashes like Garbo’s

and a curly tail;

or a sea flower

exquisite and sticky

with petally fingers

opening and twining

and wriggling and writhing.

Elin Llwyd Morgan

The Forlorn Sea

Our Princess married

A fairy King,

It was a sensational

Wedding.

Now they live in a palace

Of porphyry,

Far, far away,

By the forlorn sea.

Sometimes people visit them,

Last week they invited me;

That is how I can tell you