The mock-orange tree
looks pale as the flattened scar,
the heath upon which the heathen
screams.
The bough’s extent
graces the cropped and furrowed sky
of cloud and celestial smiles.
Dusk,
as the wail
clips pigeon wings overhead.
The winter breath a
silent re v
                        er
                                i
                                       e…


Top orange flame
a hanging amber drop
upended
like the slaked mind
drunk on hyacinth
monkshood, heather,
blossoms- opened-
a jaw with whiskers, the honeysuckle.
A sweeter smell against curlequed
        rubbings,
        rubbings
        conceived by
the skull,
the pale stretch of glossed-over belly:
the woman, barren.
Autumnal flesh never tasting spring
but always chased by winter-


-Skoll, a raking claw
to dispose of the blossom
which knew no scent
but citrus and hunger,
no breath.
Breathless.
He stands beside her,
greying hair and
hands against her pelvis,
she looks to sea in the growing dark.
Her eyes a selkie’s greenish hue
and knuckles white
with hunger
for what
could
      have
            been.
What was?
What spoken spell beneath her branches
could propose the blood
and not the name,
this woman with no heir.


No bosom full and glowing, pressed
upon by the tasseled heads
of fog and bitter smells
from the locusts upon mock orange petals,
fallen without aid of air to glide.
She smiles.
Her paling, nakedness exposed-
the cold ripped her
o
  f
    h
       e
          r
            b
               l
                 o
                    o
                      m
and took whatever happened,
-in a night above the sea,
beneath strains
of stars-
away.


Her branches trailing into dark,
her squarish chin
quivering
as she grows bent by the winter wind
that bites her heels.
He calls her back,
afraid,
hands soaked in blood and
nails caked
with soil.
She has already withered.
He leaves a mock-orange leaf to seed.

By: Hannah Malik