Mama is clawing at her bedsheets
as her skin erupts
into lesions,
a girdle of lichenous scabs
encrust her back
and breasts;
shingles triggered awake
from its long torpor
in her sensory ganglion,
harboured there
since her girl-body
itched with chickenpox,
now it surges along
the frail tributaries
of her nervous system,
expressing itself in blisters
at the shore
of her consciousness.
Quick! Daughter, mix a poultice
of bicarbonate and vinegar,
dab it on to loosen the sting.
*
Once mama is asleep,
you walk to the beech tree
in the corner of the field,
where a bracket fungus
has made its shelves
in the lower trunk,
the bark already ruddled
with rust-coloured spores,
and the tree hiding
within the tree is
mycelium — multiplying
its phantom-white hyphae,
well set to work
on rotting
the good heart-wood.
_____________
Sammy Weaver is studying for an MA in Creative Writing at Manchester Metropolitan University. Her poems have been published in The Moth, The Island Review, and have appeared in various anthologies. She lives on a narrowboat in West Yorkshire.