Abi Curtis
Mole
Velour glove with no fingers
Earth’s secretary,
shoving on,
I coax the ground to follow.
My middle-ear a curve of bone
brokering the sighs of worms,
glad knees of brittle crickets
lady-spiders tapping their heels
impatient for the sun’s thump
as it spooks up by increments.
I build a supple chimney
for a fossil’s hearth,
pulse a code
along the vertebrae
instructing the secretion
of biography.
Crisp delicacy of wings,
juicy pips of insect eyes:
my slow food, on the move
I clean my whiskers on the malachite.
I’m an initiate, I know
the hue of beetroot by my taste-buds
can sniff the difference at dawn,
the peaty tang of dusk,
sound-out the déjà vu
of constellations,
identify the clues that lace
the rain’s low conversation.
I work alone, rowing the bones
to hold apart a way home.
You misconceive,
I don’t intend to use it:
I look back only once
(so to speak)
clearing the road of molecules
for your return.
You’ll pull the file,
delve the archive
then come scooping
through the loam.
The very moment you have proved me,
is the one I’ll make you mine.
Earth’s secretary,
shoving on,
I coax the ground to follow.
My middle-ear a curve of bone
brokering the sighs of worms,
glad knees of brittle crickets
lady-spiders tapping their heels
impatient for the sun’s thump
as it spooks up by increments.
I build a supple chimney
for a fossil’s hearth,
pulse a code
along the vertebrae
instructing the secretion
of biography.
Crisp delicacy of wings,
juicy pips of insect eyes:
my slow food, on the move
I clean my whiskers on the malachite.
I’m an initiate, I know
the hue of beetroot by my taste-buds
can sniff the difference at dawn,
the peaty tang of dusk,
sound-out the déjà vu
of constellations,
identify the clues that lace
the rain’s low conversation.
I work alone, rowing the bones
to hold apart a way home.
You misconceive,
I don’t intend to use it:
I look back only once
(so to speak)
clearing the road of molecules
for your return.
You’ll pull the file,
delve the archive
then come scooping
through the loam.
The very moment you have proved me,
is the one I’ll make you mine.
Abi Curtis was born in 1979 and lives in Brighton. She was an Eric Gregory winner in 2004 and is currently completing a PhD in creative and critical writing at the University of Sussex.
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