graveless
I knew a tree
bent as a scythe in the bone-gathering

sky how small
the shape of our leaves
how wristed our motion & its windless

cross
current of river & axe
where we broke the mule our brother

downed him
on the banks we
cut the bit I forced the choke

fevering
in the killing-shed of her love
I hungered to be her waisted daughter

bloodwet firstborn
& all those cold afternoons
when we buried the pigs some in mats others

without
under the bronze hawthorn
she laboured with a stone learning

the abandoned
call of the childless
though she had six mouths feeding & one

son I know
we passed by days ago
thistles were growing in the middle of the road

& church bells
bleeting among the mossbed
where she wrapped us in the blight

dismantling
we eat the thorn
she locks the gate we are earthless mother I am