Solstice d'été

Three blue-eyed children cracked walnuts

over the abyss. Lovers lie

amongst the shells, where a limp body

was covered in a sheet

of white butterflies.

 

Met a king that swims in his clothes and

wears a white stone around his neck�"the son

of a woman with scarlet curls and eyes like a pyre.

 

Strange kitchens have become familiar with the

tang of fresh bread.

We pick nettles at the marshes edge, with naked

slugs on the rim of an outdoor sink.

 

The willow allowed me to take seven

of its arms that we threaded with clover and vices,

and wore atop our heads as the sun reached its peak.

 

The leaves curled in the fire,

turning and turning to

keep Lucifer at bay.

Pruning purple scales,

I ate my first artichoke,

peeled it with shut eyes and cut the heart in two,

three,

four.

‘Une naissance.’ A newly foreign man

cracked the skin of an egg

to free the feathered thing within.

 

At night, it is only the light of the heat-lamp that spills

over a red sea, and I fall asleep to a theatre of frogs

beneath the sails.