by Charlotte Jackson

I wonder if thirst unmakes you, makes you
prone to drawing meaning out of stones,
to finding divinity in a cut nail
or at the bottom of a cool well, squat
as a waitful toad, your skin soft with water.
A boulder gathers grit by your ear-Â
one reddish night it tumours its way in.
Your hands scrabble for crumbs,
carpeted stale constellations, for pearls,
mothers, teeth, to thread round your neck.
You are damp to the touch
outline fossilised in this wet bower
and at some unripe hour the moon
makes liquid pearls of your knuckles, and
you begin to ask yourself
if there is a shard of fishwife salt
wedged in your spine, your
hard walls growing long towards the light.
CHARLOTTE JACKSON has recently completed her undergraduate degree in English and Spanish. Her work has appeared previously in the Isis Magazine and Cuntry Living Zine.
Art by Abigail Hodges
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