Sunday, 31 August 2025

Five Poems by Zoë Davis

 





 

we only talk at night

 

 

seduced by words  

I curl around you 

coy as cigar smoke 

ephemeris  

ghosting your jacket  

claiming your hair 

twisting your lore 

invisible stain striking soul  

bold as Lucifer  

flame-haired glory  

ignite beneath the way I string 

sibilant sanguinous serendipity 

stuttering on the superfluous 

we need no wine  

to read between the lines 

I never use a comma 

you know there is more 

 


 

The shape of me

 

 

At worst I am a fake triangle 

trick of the light 

illusion of strength 

 

built on impossible angles 

you must crawl close 

to see vacuity 

 

left turn your quizzical head 

out sphynx me 

you could see me round 

 

occasionally 

complete  

I will not say whole  

 

as that would be a sphere 

apple smooth delicious 

at best I may be square 

 

a hexagon perhaps 

nothing greater 

I do not possess that many sides 

 

and wish to be drawn easily 

my area a complication  

despite equal length 

 

maybe I’m a lemniscate  

some comedy shape 

no, it must be a triangle 

 

let me be obtuse 

maintain a stranger could work me out 

with kind trigonometry. 

 

 

Time must be made of swallows 

 

hunting summer 

frenzied before sun’s  

rough shuttering 

straining poppies 

gallants riding jam  

through linen.  

 

As heat-haze fades 

insects turn to stardust 

unfurl their cartography 

navigate by ancestral beats 

I am half past 

my own golden hour 

 

yet northern vowels chime 

with southern heart 

storms butter hands  

slip  

as the moon waxes 

wanes 

 

darts below. 

 

 

 

At midnight

 

 

a whine of dusk weeps through rusted gates  

nothing but a blunt frore whisper pressed  

kiss-like into bare marble necks brushing  

ragged hems of tombstones as He appears  

timeless fingers caressing weathered  

cherub’s heads & uncut grass this was & 

is His garden & when it is time we bloom  

heavenwards tear-watered & not so deep         

as to have laid roots translucent hands are  

grasped in welcome to life after His gelid  

reaping gathered straw-like within a hollow  

ribcage as weeds are expelled watch them 

burn pray you are an immaculate ear of corn 

tender soul born to grace the feasting table.  

 

 

Trinket

 

 

    It’s dark in here. 

 

This pocket you dropped me into nuzzled against tender breast pressed close to soft rocking  

wolfen heart keeping regular time.  

 

    It’s dark in here. 

 

Possibly forgotten except for a pat as one might check for a wallet or keys an act of reassurance/codependency I am safe I am safe here beside a worn copper penny alive with the scent of spent summer rain. 

 

    It’s dark in here. 

 

Forever limbo a linen viscose mix myself no more than a lost button replaced on the shirt of some greater being who loves me who loves me who loves that the thread remains.









 

Zoë Davis is an emerging writer from Sheffield, England. She's a stubborn FND sufferer and fights what her body says she can't do by playing wheelchair rugby league. In her free time she writes poetry and prose, and especially enjoys exploring the interaction between the fantastical and the mundane, with a deeply personal edge to her work. You can find her words in publications such as: Ink Sweat & Tears, Strix, Roi Fainéant, Dust and Red Ogre Review. You can also follow her on X @MeanerHarker where she's always happy to have a virtual coffee and a chat.


  

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