Witch-Hazel
by Katharine Strong
The thaw comes and I will go.
I am the upward surge,
I am the spark the flint strikes, I am the sun,
the winter flame, saffron-red, saffron-yellow.
The loam’s low hum says wait, says
patience yields a better petal,
a gentler furl. I do not obey.
I am a lit fuse against the chainmail sky
no beauty in me but intensity.
What a hedgehog has to hide
after Paul Muldoon / by Amaleena Damlé
Always someone trying to
get in. Prod the soft flesh.
I stitch the ragged seams,
hemming the edges of my og.
Afterwards I forget to take
the needles out.
I’ll keep them in.
It seems safer that way.
How thrilling it is to roll like this –
curled up and nested,
the horse-chestnut thorns of me
scratching the earth.
Stand back. Watch
those fingers.
I must say these spikes have come in
rather useful. Always someone trying to
get in. Prod the soft flesh.
With these thorns, I’ll gather grapes,
spin in my offspring’s cartwheels.
Stand back.
There are mouths to feed.
APOLLO
by Susie Wilson
An apple tree,
bearing
w a t e r
when it rains,
offering the drops back up
to Mother Father Everything sky,
or to the Lord of light, growth, plague.
It isn’t bending down
to us, or earth. Instead
suddenly this summer,
my tree prepares
for lift-off.
Cargo grows
in its delicate hold.
And drop by drop,
it bends,
to spring.
Apple Mission No. 1:
return
its golden apples to the Sun,
or silvered, to the Moon.
And sure enough,
one fine day, in every city,
perfect pairs of apple trees
will tumble
up
in soundless synchronicity,
into a diving pool of sky,
leaving no tell-tale
splash.
Just us, finally
open
-mouthed.
Katharine Strong is a writer and editor. This is her first publication.
Amaleena Damlé is a poet and an academic who lives in Durham. In all forms, her writing coalesces around themes of embodiment, incorporation, and loss Her poems have appeared in a variety of online and print journals and magazines, including Acropolis, After, Atrium, Dreich, Dust, IceFloe Press, Ink, Sweat & Tears, The Dirigible Balloon, The French Literary Review, and Sarasvati.
Susie Wilson is a Scottish auDHD poet living in Sheffield and has an MA in Creative Writing (Poetry) from Manchester Metropolitan University. She won the Disabled Poets Prize 2024, with her pamphlet ‘Nowhere Near As Safe As A Snake In Bed’ due out in November with Verve Poetry Press, a series about living with advanced melanoma and the cutting-edge science used to treat it. She is currently writing and drawing about time, snakes, the god Apollo and clowning. Her work can be found for example in Northern Gravy, Black Bough, Envoi and at www.susiewilsonpoet.com