Michelle O'Sullivan

Two Poems

Where the Wood Begins

i
It is windless, or nearly. Now and again
there’s a sift or a creak –
unsteady movements lift from the field’s frame;
little lights blot the damped chalked skyline.

The estuary haunts, voice intense as it lows
from a blind spot – disagreed words or a harsh
verse rising, idea and erasure at once.

ii

Repeatedly turning to the river for more
or less river, this narrow sweep that widens
and this widening sweep that narrows;
constant inconsistencies, all flux.

Daylit and gaunt the beech trees are beaded
with rooks –thinned sentries and the air triggered
to still, cut gun metals inspected with sunlight.

 

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