Wild
Mouse-eared into tight corners, smalled
into holes lined with abandoned wishbones,
it took time to learn the skreels were my own.
He did not seem to hear them, or realise
that behind skirting boards, there were
tunnels gnawed into being when the house
was asleep. He still walks through the rooms
he opened to the public, but the real work
is behind the scenes, deep in the foundations
or under layers of old wallpaper that is no longer
replaceable. I have chewed it all, made nests
for impossible futures, conceived them
when he was unaware how my wildness still
lived under floorboards, in cavities in the walls.
…
Hannah Linden is published widely including or upcoming in Atrium, Lighthouse, Magma, New Welsh Review, Prole, Proletarian Poetry, Stand, The Interpreters’ House, Under the Radar and the 84 Anthology etc. She is working towards her first collection. Twitter: @hannahl1n
atriumpoetry.com 