It’s hard to praise what makes you special,
the carved away wood of you,
Â
the holes
in what was once a tree.
Â
But my lover’s hands traced the shape of an egg,
an abstract concept he said,
Â
this hole I’ve drilled just here, do you not see
the speck of blood that should not be there?
Â
I know he polished repeatedly, layer
upon layer of beeswax,
Â
rubbing it in so deeply
it still has a lustre these decades on,
Â
when I can still feel his hands on my belly
as he laid it there, when I thought
Â
I could die then and be happy. Thinking
of the children we never had

Hannah Linden
Hannah Linden’s most recent awards are 1st prize in the Cafe Writers Open Poetry Competition 2021 and Highly Commended in the Poetry Wales Award 2021. The Beautiful Open Sky with V. Press is her debut pamphlet and she is working towards her first full collection.
Twitter: @hannahl1n
Comments