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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