May
Bedraggled angels blethered
across Eleven Acres
as belling from the bwoneyard
a-rangled round the archet
✴
Her fingernails a-ripped
from hauling clay-filled fists
out of the river’s edges
for pots with happy voices
Conzum-ed with twanketen
that’s only eased by scratching
whisp-words slim as thistles
or a sickly chicken’s whistles
✴
Seem an I a childhood
of quartere’il and wormwood
of not-friends running nowhere
of vog a-veiling elsewhere
✴
Till in the vaulted barn
queer-lit by dummet zun
she knew herself a vessel
fit for a different wordle
where footsteps must be lwone
and barefoot upon stones
and the northwind’s ever-host
gives edges to the ghosts
✴
Seem an I a childhood
of quartere’il and wormwood
of not-friends running nowhere
of vog a-veiling elsewhere
of mother’s voice not-calling
of corrugated iron
of devil’s birds and whiskey
of chilver hogs and fleecy
and nuts I could not reapy
and nuts I could not reapy
Seem an I – seems to me; bedraggled angels – wet sheep; blether – to bleat or blare much, take noisily; bwoneyard – graveyard, churchyard; rangle – to reach about like a trailing or climbing plant; archet – orchard; conzum-ed – consumed; twanketen – melancholy; dummet – dusk; zun – sun; wordle – world; lwone – lone; quartere’il – a disease of sheep, a corruption of the blood; vog – fog; devil’s bird, chattermag – magpie; chilver hog – a yearling ewe lamb; fleecy – fleece; drunk, drunken; nuts – joy, testicles; reapy – reap