Medlock by Yvonne Reddick

She sails her beech-mast from the woods

to Cairo Mill, burrows into darkness

under Sun Hill,

resurfaces to rock

the cemetery in the crook

of an oxbow.

Winter floods stirred her from her bed –

she turned

grave-robber, coal-hauler.

Ran underground.

She’s the night-sweat

locked in the stadium’s cellar.

You walk between feverfew and glib blossom

fretting about the fragile branches

of your sister’s lungs.

On the other bank

someone slams their door

on a yell.

Home has its own thorns and hemlock.

The red river coughs up bottles, cans, dead

toys. She must swallow

every drain in Failsworth.

Rotten walls, prehistoric with horsetails

and bird’s nest fern. Yellow fever of charlock,

water clotting on draggled plastic.

What will you catch

if you touch the surface,

now that the breeze feels infected?

Midstream, a dirty silver shadow

hangs

by the beat of its fins.

Flank dappled garnet, onyx –

flash –

A wren’s alarm-cry.

That torn-off mask on a willow branch.

_______________

Yvonne Reddick is a poet, nature writer and environmental film producer. Her collection Burning Season (Bloodaxe) won the Laurel Prize for Best First UK Collection of Ecopoetry in 2023. She is working on a nonfiction book, Fire on Winter Hill. Her latest film project is Life After Fire.