So much mourning.

We brooch it over our hearts,

wear it tight around throats.

 

We fold into our rosaries,

each bead a black prayer

shovelled through aching fingers.

 

This type of coal smokes

around our wrists,

forges itself into chains.

 

We have mined so long

even gemstones grow brittle

against our grief. It splits,

cracks like bark in a blaze.

Claire Walker’s poetry has been published in magazines, anthologies and webzines including The Interpreter’s House, Prole, Ink Sweat and Tears, The Poetry Shed, and The Chronicles of Eve. She is a Reader for Three Drops Press, and Co-Editor of Atrium poetry webzine. Her first pamphlet – The Girl Who Grew Into a Crocodile – was published by V. Press in 2015, and a second – Somewhere Between Rose and Black – will follow in December 2017.