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Jen Hadfield

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Excalibur

I remember now this skull
the biggest of the summer came from Shetland,

sheathed blade the beak, so it must
have been adult, a great Black-Back
bigger and more mythic
than the flower-ivory of the Little Gull
or the flat spatula Shag;
a Mongolian weaponry of ivory and chewy gold
and amber, the bone here thick
and knobbed and bubbled, as if the peat
shaped it then hawked it up, weirdly clean
(the laces of muscle mostly broken,
no squeamish ribbons for me with bleach
and scourer to untie) and the cuticle yellow
and cracked as old dough
in an unwashed-up bowl.

Now I remember Shetland's way
of scentlessness, the dead sheep fewer
without that stink like junket, even the moor
smells pale, and vagrant, piccolo

Now I remember sitting hours on that doorstep
with this skull that smelt of nothing
and the dog treading
on my bare foot, stone dry stone-baked pads
and me looking for words for the seagull's skull

and hens eye me
but moor themselves like ginger islands
in the tributaries of their fear.

Ayu

Page(s) 49

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