2 poems by Sophie Diver

You swallowed a pip

you said it was a mistake. and now you have an apple tree growing in your belly. 

you are Vaseline and vanilla, a stretch of sebaceous muzzled under full fat foundation. you are a braid of pains smothered in witch-hazel. 

under skimmed-milk skin, the seed follows your blotty freckles and lands in catastrophe. its roots churn in your worrygut. a twist of stalk spells out you future husband’s name. 

perhaps you will learn to nurture order and enzyme. raise adorable sugars.            but the earth is inhospitable. you don’t want to be another stewed mother. but what do you know about cider? nothing but an accident in ferment. 

I dread the orchard, too. but I cannot wait for tradition to taste us. to sour in the mouths of those expecting us to crumble. 

Long legs 

prickling to the creases of

of a workwarm shirt               a scribble flinches

amok, amok, amok

she fizzes

70% crisis

in lines and lines and lines

of limbs

she straightens the zigzags

in all of her knees                to a diluted daybreak

at his bedroom’s shoulder

she holds the 

earth together

to say: light

              I love you this much

____________

Sophie Diver is a writer and poet from Nottingham, UK. She is a BBC New Creative and singer/lyricist in the egg punk band, No Peeling. She has supported Brian Bilston at the Nottingham Poetry Festival and has been commissioned by the music retailer, Rough Trade.