Helen Oswald
Not wanting to write about truffles
Inside my head, the image hunkers down. Terriers
sniff out the musty chunks nestled at the roots,
stinking of dry rot. These dogs have a nose
for what hides deep in the earth’s architecture.
Once loosed, the truffles look like space junk, looming up
behind the credits of a sci-fi movie – lumpy, pock-marked,
not a proper planet but definitely there from the start,
survivors of an ugly, knock-about game.
In this acquired taste, there is a tang of something rare
but not quite right. They are like a tumour that once out
earns you only a short reprieve: the reaper’s stolen goods.
Their value is not in scarcity but in that saving,
exhuming something precious from dead ground.
Try as I may, I still go down there with the hope of it.
sniff out the musty chunks nestled at the roots,
stinking of dry rot. These dogs have a nose
for what hides deep in the earth’s architecture.
Once loosed, the truffles look like space junk, looming up
behind the credits of a sci-fi movie – lumpy, pock-marked,
not a proper planet but definitely there from the start,
survivors of an ugly, knock-about game.
In this acquired taste, there is a tang of something rare
but not quite right. They are like a tumour that once out
earns you only a short reprieve: the reaper’s stolen goods.
Their value is not in scarcity but in that saving,
exhuming something precious from dead ground.
Try as I may, I still go down there with the hope of it.
Helen Oswald won fourth place in the 2004 Arvon International Poetry Competition and her pamphlet, The Dark Skies Society, was published in 2004 by Waterloo Press. She lives in Brighton.
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