Jane Doe #503 by Laura Potts, winner of the Poetry category 2017
Yes. Back then, I was child of a garden and pavement
end. When homestead old was forest and fire, and high
were the gold robes of fields which rose to my run, some
say I tore up the moors. On that cold morning and grey,
before day burst down a valley now lost (I cross
myself and pray), I lay in the grass like a child of light.
The stars said yesterday’s night lived on, but gone
were the fawns which shaped the hill. Out and away,
still, I remember the scrap of a scream on the wind.
After that? Nil. But spilt down the river my girlhood blood
when he came with his bird-wet skin, portraits of women
gone thin in his eyes. My cries are yesterday’s
echo. No. To red-slit fig he pressed his teeth, gum
to a garden in infancy green and only the hills to hear.
Wind-sneer spat at the curl of my ear on that black-flat
ground, when pale were the globes of clay
in my eyes. He rolled them skullwards once, twice. Some
nights, the shy face of moon makes a bruise in the sky
high-hung in a field where no wildfowl graze, cries for
my last-gasp fire of youth. Yes. I have seen better days.
***
Laura Potts began to write poetry at an early age, winning The Foyle Young Poets Award twice during her school days. While at university, she moved to Swansea to work at The Dylan Thomas Birthplace and write for The Dylan Thomas Society. You can find out more about her on her website: https://laurapottspoetry.com/