Poetry by Natalie Crick

Like Smoke

November curled itself around my

Spine like cigarette smoke,

Seeping into me.

December froze in her grey web.

I want to wake from the dark,

Sleep naked in moon-cooled dirt,

Deep in the night where graves

Spread like black pollen.

I am where the wind

Snuffs out candles,

Can touch a curtain like a ghost,

Like a bell.

Like the dead I escort

Sap to want.

You

I carved your bones

Into a tree.

Discovered you in velvet petals

Powdered with pollen,

White feathers sullied by soil,

Mouth smeared pink with juice,

Seeds shining from tiny teeth,

Suddenly sullen

Inside the wild strawberry plant.

Perhaps my hands offend you.

They nurture sin.

They lose their colour,

Pulled back as skin from Godly grape.

Abandoned,

They spin spider silk,

Stand at the edge

Of a field shivering,

Dark,

Licked to sleep.

---

Natalie Crick, from the UK, has poetry published or forthcoming in a range of journals and magazines including Interpreters House, The Chiron Review, Rust and Moth, Ink in Thirds and The Penwood Review. This year her poem, ‘Sunday School’ was nominated for the Pushcart Prize. Her first chapbook will be released by Bitterzoet Press this year.