Night is an open mouth. Her touch minnows the water,
Whispers leaves as if
Through lace to some Forbidden ear,
Combs my hair with glassy fingers,
A memory of her breath Heard beneath the door,
The warmth apparent That haunts her absent lungs.
Ghosts are there to see by. You remember.
The Spare Room
This misty Autumn Sunday The damp little room is filled With little thoughts That feed.
Still falls the rain. The house persists, and then within, The dark room of wrong. It spoke to her as in a dream:
‘I am She’.
Her pale hands grope In search of her, Listening to the voices Of women and children.
Sleeping out there in the sun, in the rain, She never opened the door Fearing that she might see nothing at all. This is the room where two lie dead.
Swan
I scrub mouse blood from the floorboards Imagining ice, Imagining throats. The dead stay dead.
A necked Swan Sits disgraced, The pale bone poking through, a Sword rising from a lake Sharp and still sheathed. The bone is so white I could have carved It from wax, Soft as bees, A candle without a flame.
Forever Winter, the sky Looks cold, pink as a clot In the mouth When the lights go out.
Bio: Natalie Crick, from the UK, has poetry published or forthcoming in a range of magazines including The Chiron Review, Interpreters House, Ink in Thirds, Rust and Moth, The Penwood Review. Her work also features or is forthcoming in a number of anthologies, including Lehigh Valley Vanguard Collections 13. This year her poem, 'Sunday School' was nominated for the Pushcart Prize.