The Hush
Pine limbs sleep
silent under snow.
Cattle low like preachers.
The dead listen.
Shrouded by cornstalks
they stand enrapt.
I light a candle and watch the smoke curl
until it twists into moths:
they whisper before they leave for good.
It is ink-black and the room has tightened.
I am disturbed by your absence,
numb as a berry fallen in snow.
I hear the tide of the corn,
the last dull vowels of the dreamers.
Natalie Crick (UK) has poetry published in Interpreters House, Bare Fiction and Poetry Salzburg Review. A Writing Poetry MA student at Newcastle University (taught by Tara Bergin and Jacob Polley), her poetry has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize twice.
atriumpoetry.com 