Hera Lindsay Bird (writing as Hera Bradburn)
Winner - 2009
Things which can be held.
There are hands born
to shadow walls with the bright motions of birds.
There are birds born
to unpick skies with small hooked beaks.
In the cold of the kitchen, braiding wooden stems in patient wreaths.
We trim the stems diagonally, suspend life briefly.
Your breath catches on nothing, these fine folds of flesh
curl our throats with the force of what’s spoken.
There are things that can be held in this life,
and maybe you will be the one to hold them.
Jaime.
His cardigan is still hanging by the door where he left it
hooked like a fish. Its neck is an open mouth
gasping.
You lay your face against the surface of the kitchen table
the polished grain, the dark veins of trees.
It too was once growing.
Marguerite.
Those friends of her body, those rusting cells
that strike together like Christmas bells
are ringing themselves out.
The sky can no longer focus itself.
The curtains are as dark as the trees.
The trees are as dark as the curtains.
Her linen is frightening
tight and winding.
Eventually
everything folds.