Janet Horne
Inkblot forest, my feet know your rutted floors, my soul your wheeling sky
Scotch Witch, the trees hiss. I think you have mistaken me
for someone who knows what to do with darkness.
I forced her down, didn’t I, remember the dirt in her mouth
the only living thing I hated more than the cancer, silenced
choking; her heart squirming in my pitiless, shaking hands.
The last, the last, and they do not know your name. A stone with no name
and your heart beat till the last smoke-scorned breath. Do you know
I think they were frightened of you.
I did not die by fire; I trade in soil but my lungs are filled with water.
Picture me, uncanny. Shadow-wreathed young shoulders, head
as old as a moss-wrapped gravestone – do the innocent truly sink?
In The Swing
For many months I walked between purposes
terrier-toed in case I slid too far to one or the other.
One said ‘cry’; the other said ‘stand’. But I was strong enough
to hold a sword, and so I struck myself down instead.
Grown
I am old enough to brand a mark of my rawest hurt
into the place between my shoulder and elbow, where
I used to cradle myself in my delicate days. Where
now a stranger’s hand might grip, once, twice,
with a reassurance that, You’re alright…kid.
They, like me, hesitate
because can you call me a kid when
I’m taller than you barefoot and I can say words
that break your voice without a second thought?
Sometimes I will let myself in with the spare key
and cry silently on the back doorstep
cradling a cup of coffee that’s mostly warm milk.
My friends, I think, don’t know what to do
with their hands around me. Sometimes I
push for fists because a bruise reminds me that
my blood still flows. Other times, it’s their feet
I worry about. They kick and kick but do not stand.
You can’t force them, everyone says
but I try. It’ll take time, everyone says
but I did not have time, and the most mature
thing I think I have done is not begrudging them theirs.
The next is that I can still stand on rooftops, run in
long grass, write like I mean it, and love
like I mean it harder. That I can live, growing, almost grown.
Daisy Harris, 27/05/2019
Daisy Harris Poetry 