By Florence Hutchinson
Blue eared and broken, I fell upon Tom Bell’s
Rhinoceros skull
I take a sip of bluebells and wild garlic
I smother my lips with turkey-tailed mushrooms
Self inflicted on this rank cave, I stop the exit
With local sandstone, snared
Small bodies into the cotton grinder
I meditate on Spinning Jenny and the urge
To unfurl, the tourists and hikers share
lemon drizzle cake and admire
The olde worlde charme
Mill pond decays, mill pond perfect
Backdrop for a shabby chic wedding
Wet your feet in the flat water. Scoop out the fruitflesh of someone else’s life.
By Florence Hutchinson
Dear Nellie Kane you are
Weeping underneath my needles again
A scoured hand pressing
Against my grain, half-animal
One fox eared ghost listens
To your rage song
He descends
His moonshine rage
His red-eyed coal spit force
As if to say “you dare laugh at me”
You are vulnerable now, clean off the bone
Clutching hand. The twist:
You spy the tin can flash
Of a whiskey bottle
I see
Urgency and haemorrhage
Legs goat-strong
Bull roar and
Wilderness burns
A carp’s gill gasping raw
You are alive in your
Bloodied dress
Clutching at this ghost
Star-eyed and free
By Florence Hutchinson
Ten years since I last saw you, a blackthorn branch
Takes root inside my arm
A spine of sloe curled its hand against all the sinew
And sap I held, leading me to grow
Waterlogged and bruised
I read about woodland fungi in the bath
I picture my body cleaved from a rope
Of mushrooms breathing through the thin space
Between skin and muscle
Creeping, audaciously, to the light
You kiss me after office monthly drinks,
Breathing the spores of a crabapple seed
Into my mouth
Together, we breathe out the crackle
Of bodily fruit, fruit of desire