Elizabeth Welsh

Heath Granted five hides of land, he balked / a chunk of emerald in slate-grey / you read all this from the urban twitchers’ guidebook / as we beat in the pencil-thick reeds / hoping to flush the bittern / catholic in its landscape / you trample flowering lesser celandine / & we round towards Boudicca’s Mound / a tumulous of defeat / & as you dip and bob your head towards the wetlands / promising, if nothing else, a jizz / I wonder why you occupy this cityscape / to which the warmness of your buff-fawn plumage bristles Cape Crozier eggs The night  after his  teeth shattered, he dreamt about eggs / Dreams that pitched him, hurtling through cones of butcher-red dust / with pearly, iridescent penguin eggs at the centre / He tasted mustard yellow yolk, watched lizard, terrapin & caiman pierce through thin shell walls that turned into his molars /Awake to blackest night / his voleskin pouch of salvaged teeth & bone weighing on his sternum / ‘Birds’ sternum – projecting keel – flight muscles’, flickered through his mind / He yearned for flight / They wrapped up camp, lit candles and stared at the stars for want of direction.

Elizabeth Welsh is an academic editor, originally from New Zealand and currently living in London. Her poetry has been published in a number of print and online magazines, including 14 Magazine, The Prose Poem Project, Ranfurly Review, Corium Magazine, Ink, Sweat & Tears, Shot Glass Journal & Blackmail Press.
 
 
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