I see you then: long and veined with red like the closed
pod of an asphodel bud: if you opened now it would be
with the strangeness of a lily its scent edging between sweat,
and the musk that marks a territory: I have not forgotten you:
in the bed my other children are sleeping: they climb
under the covers: a fluffed head on my shoulder: five tiny
toes cold against my leg: in the morning light the children
will shake themselves to feathers and float away: I will find
them pale and half-transformed: one arm becomes a great
white wing: at the end of the leg a black, webbed swan-foot:
nothing could be happier than finding them whole: tides drag
to the land and back again: cool night: the children wake
to the red of closed eyelids: strings are trilling or snapping
loose from their pegs: the wet stamen of lilies offer
themselves up to the bees: spinning fear: if I knitted a nightshirt
of nettle leaves, you would not be a swan flying away.

Zoë Brigley Thompson

Zoë Brigley Thompson’s most recent collection is Conquest (2012).