by Natalie Crick
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.
NATALIE CRICK, from the UK, has poetry has been published or forthcoming in a range of journals and magazines including The Chiron Review, Interpreters House, Ink in Thirds, Rust and Moth, and The Penwood Review. This year her poem, “Sunday School” was nominated for the Pushcart Prize.
Photo: “Swan” by Gary Ullah
Psaltery & Lyre 