Slow Light

Last night I saw the moon rolled into the tree, its pith and peel blanched in the nights slow light. We walked right under it and you hardly looked up at the lichen smudge bruising its white rind. Perhaps to hide the stains you had your hands in your pockets, soft black holes that weigh of nothing but your hands and the green scent of sloes and the slowly collapsing moment, that loose libration of black crescents under your nails waxed gibbous by bark, realigning light with every move and touch of our hands.

Diving Lesson

He reels himself out on a line of his breath. Take hold of one endhere you areand fasten its quick, shivering rope to your forearm. Dont worry if, when you reach in for the line, the gelatinous wet of his breath bursts, breaks in your hands, if the chain frays to air. You are at the surface. Air is different here. You dont struggle to tumble a dry lungful overboard, shuttling his name, his name, instructions for breathing, but hedeeper, pressed down to his wishbone rifts. His bold, old body, talking himself down, downslow down pleaseand you are washing and watching, watching his eyes crush strange with a rootless, drifting fear. You wait, your hands cupped, as if ready to displace the sea, if you must, while your childs ancient body teaches him how to dive.

Holly Corfield Carr is a Bristol-based poet and artist. She received an Eric Gregory Award in 2012 and is working as Writer-in-Residence at Spike Island throughout 2013.