By JOHANNA HIGGINS.

.

1.Ghost.

IT’S THE BREATHING out that kills
The drawing in throughout
The love that spills.
The reddened love
That
Turns and tears
At flesh, at
Some adhesion,
Where the blood meets
Ghost and reason.

Untitled: 2.

AS DUST LIES,
So
The thrill of fleshful things
Has moved.
Lost
In the desire of
A
Moment.
Gone.
Bend
And genuflection
Ending.
Spent and
Enim Corpus
Ending.
As dust lies
And so
Moves on.

Untitled: 3.

THIS IS TIME.
Look,
Here on a rock,
Nothing.
See?
Here in my hand
Moving briefly.
There, towards a calling
Child.
Now, this
Is time.
See?
Caught in the fastening
Of your shirt
Like a heart
Shaped
Bit.
Look, this is time.
Minding the movements
Of the sea.
Look,
This is time.
Noting the beats of your endless
Voice
Speaking in metre.
Always
Speaking, never
Hearing.

4. The Room.

HEART-SHAPED FLAME
And fire
Of double birded
Fret.
Duet
Of lovely sparks
In timbered pane.
Kindled here
In hearth,
In comely, homely
Mantle.
Friend come near,
Friend warmer be.

5. Burial Ground of Darling, Leaved.

IT DOESN’T FOLD it sleets
And turns.
The heat enwraps the cold
And burns.
The loss of loss
Comes smashing through
In conscious slabs
Of hurt.

6. Leaf.

TRIMMED DARKNESS
Bending over
Light
Behind
In golden splendour.
Lark and raven
Magic
Calling,
Take me to my king.
So, falling,
Into wood
As leaf
To tree
Is he
Who pushes back the darkness.
See.

7. Eremite.

LISTEN WOOD
Through hazel
Sounding,
Pidgeon wing and
Leaves
In autumn
Mounding.
Listen wood, for
Closely comes the tread of
Man.
And yet
This one
Is quiet too,
Like waters in the shape of dew
Like breast of bird
And red of roe,
And through him
Rests the spear.
Eyes reflecting
Roses keeping,
Tired from toil
Heart asleeping.
Lay him here within our keeping
Circled now by oak.

♦

Johanna Higgins was selected for inclusion in the Best New British and Irish Poets Anthology 2020 to be published by Eyewear Press. She is currently working on her first anthology of poetry, The Etymology of Think. She is a lawyer who investigates miscarriages of justice as a Commissioner for the Criminal Cases Review Commission and is a member of the Royal Historical Society. She had a Cumbrian childhood but now lives in Ireland with her family.