Natalie Crick

 

 

Spider

 

The whisper

Wicks from her lips.

A soothing salve.

 

She bends, twists,

Feet touching the walls

In eight different places.

 

Her laurels always rove.

Search.

Hold.

 

Gagging the dawn chorus

Until

The hunger moon thins.

 

Dissecting a house fly,

She commits

Murder on the brightest window,

 

At first frost

Opens the door

Without a guest to feast.

 

 

Midwinter

 

Trees appear as brides,

Their snow dance wounding

The cosmos.

I am numb to you.

No one sees the snowdrops budding,

A bright field of knives.

If I turn away, they grow

In lines of white flame and,

As darkness falls,

A kingdom of black blossoms

Deep as a moaning mouth.