listen my body is a clayware jar
there God is contained

where did my mother come from

I can’t go to White Moss
I come home
the moss doesn’t ask

this morning in this house
the vessel imparted
a slight trace of color

you leave me with the tincture
leave me a curl of clay

this is where the jam ran
built to hold the heat
built to hold the sweet

 

 

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Lydia Harris has made her home in the Orkney island of Westray. Her second poetry collection, Henrietta’s Library of the Whole Wide World (Blue Diode), was published in 2024. A further collection, if she was my god (Scarlet Tiger), is due out this autumn.

 

 

 

Photo by Aleyna Çatak on Unsplash