Nine poems by Alex Josephy, who divides her time between London and Italy, whose latest collection, Naked Since Faversham, was published this year by Pindrop Press, as part of World Poetry/Prose Portfolio, curated by Sudeep Sen 

You’re transparent, these tepid days 

when indoors and outside meet

in a balance; sometimes it’s as if 

you’re barely here at all. Then 

you bring me the bay tree’s shifting light, 

bird visitors, the valley with its fog, 

the sun-streaked mountain slopes.

I hide behind your strength, vertical 

in a wooden frame, when weather 

lashes the village. You halt a storm

before it harms us; it runs away changed 

to a flickering loom before my eyes

and while I sleep you shield me

from however many waves the night 

may throw at us. But you’re not settled 

and not about to settle; neither exactly

one thing nor another, you hold open

possibilities, a chink between solid 

and liquid: what’s here, what’s beyond. 

I admire such standing hesitation, 

how you can face two ways. I know this too: 

one blow can break you; shattered, 

you’re a quiverful of arrows. 

Cool mornings when I fill the tub, 

you veil yourself in mist. I breathe 

my gentlest sighs on you, clear you

with vinegar, rub you with softest cloths, 

sit close beside you while I read or write.

It started at my heel 

as I stepped out. A twist 

of indigo, a slim lizard tattoo, 

it scaled one leg while I walked 

to the river, hoping to dissolve

this ache. It spiralled, hip 

to belly, coiled round my waist,

a cool swerve. I swam; 

it was a water-gown. 

On the shivering shore 

it sank inside, making me 

its perimeter. I opened wide

both palms, released petals

green as cats’ eyes,

and before the sun set

I had a pyramid of pods,

a clear head, a new song 

running through it.

Don’t think you know me;

though you hack me down

I push up everywhere, green fists

hatched from the shell

of a dinosaur’s dream. I shove aside

a lid of loam, fly my flags

in the rain. I’m on the cusp

between sea-breeze and history.

I’ll bind you, soothe you

with cold mountain tea, 

the comforts of my prickly bed, 

the rough earth’s resistance.

Our country is verge; a borderland roughly mown

then left to lawlessness. So far no-one has thought 

to mine or hunt here; too busy passing through. 

Either side of their leaving, easement spreads 

in green peninsulas that begin again wherever 

they end: soft lining, furzed edge, squeezed 

to thread or pressed under concrete. Free soil

absorbs weather, gives onto air. Dazed venturers

collapse across the kerb, settle among flung cans,

fireweed; verge gives us leave to lie low, soak 

in a culvert, reflect the moon. Some of us bask

in dirt bowls; others hang out yellow rags, 

welcome the bees. Plenty find wriggle-room

for murder, music, love-making. Like anywhere.

Something in this surfeit of sun

has called, and they’ve replied, cluster

on cluster. Each floret wakens

to find herself hugged in a crowd.

Their colour is the mode: cream

undercut with green, their lips 

pursed rosy pink, fevered with sap.

Nothing can stop them now; they shove

rude clots of blossom into hedges,

overtake walls, swarm the roof.

Daughters of drought, they trample

perished bushes, open into altered air 

a thousand thousand round, unblinking eyes.

Let hedgehogs run 

into danger. Let hares leap 

before they look.

Let there be roadkill,

then a pause in the traffic.

Scour our throats 

with rook hymn.

A thousand thanks:  

one for each of the larvae

in that luscious dump

next to the cattle trough;

thousands more

for the daily wetting, 

changefulness

and cling of mud.

Blessed are friends, 

beak-business 

and loud spats, egg news 

and plain croak song.

Venerated be the trees

for their airy platforms, 

lookout crooks. Please 

remember to send

the evening breeze,

warm waves to lift us

rigid-winged above 

the town. Ruffle our pinions, 

let them flash gold-black. 

Praise the scarlet spill

of that carrion sun.

That bird, crouched low

under the combine harvester,

small chest puffed out

as if a wishbone could protect

a panicked mother, while 

the leviathon rumbles over, 

without crushing one 

single feather, one chick?

Must’ve been a stunt quail

or they shot the whole thing

in blue screen in some studio

off the North Circular, to be copied

into an off-the-peg CG scenario

or she was a bush bird, snatched

with a paparazzi lens

from miles away, cut’n’pasted

from the first few moments

so they could say

the one I’ve been watching

over and over,

frozen, hooked.

Crimson streaked with pearl-white,

your curled leaves taper to stiff folds

like rumpled oilcloth on my chopping-board; 

elegant, foreign, a closed hand

making some gesture I half-comprehend.

I want this awkward romance, your skin

cool against my fingers; watch as you fall

from the knife into small bitter tiles, as if 

that was all. Then you show the puzzle 

hidden inside, and I’ve no name

for this cross-cut of fleshy leaves, close woven 

widths no two the same, but purposeful, the way 

a spiral spins into a storm, each shining cell 

tinged pink as seaside rock. Oh then I’m uprooted,

so much of home in the heart of you.

[This poem first appeared in the volume, White Roads, published by Paekakariki Press, 2018]

I’ve disconnected the wifi,

the radio. My ears. 

Best to walk, unravelling

knotted ache,  

tread some distance. 

But field-mud clings

and chills, clay ramparts 

slow my boots. I can’t help

but notice all these 

little black empty beaks 

all that’s left of seedpods.

Even the pearl grey mist

spreads confusion. Gritty water 

twines downhill. Anything 

with half a gram of sense

has gone underground.