my body is a house in winter

by Kerry Darbishire

Hope is a thing with feathers

– Emily Dickinson

latched in frost      veins     rivers      

stilled     and      slow   

as dying blood      skin 

pale as pale as skin can be     desire      

snowbound and words confined 

to lakes that cannot breathe

                                                     If I could fly 

through warm corridors      scented rooms      

a favourite painting to lift me to a house

where light and bowls we cherished      blossomed

on a table laid for spring

                                                     summer will

find me in a harebell sky     drifts of lightest rain

birds nesting without fear

sea-lapped curlews      singing

from new-moon beaks     

                                                   and summer 

will      beat these wings along landings          bright 

and scented as a Vita Sackville-West garden   

where the first roses      hollyhocks      peonies      

will be opening their hearts      

by a wooden seat in a yard      

nodding with bees  

Kerry Darbishire lives in a remote area of The Lake District, Cumbria, England. She has two pamphlets (one is a collaboration published by Grey Hen Press and the other is with Dempsey and Windle) Also two full poetry collections with Indigo Dreams Publishing and a third with Hedgehog Press due out in March 2022. Her poems have appeared widely in magazines and anthologies and have gained prizes in competitions including Bridport 2017.