Somewhere in the wellspring the knot forms
its liquid twist. Water won’t obey anyone.
Take a shoe’s reluctance to be threaded
against the weather and water will find
a persuasive argument. This rainstorm
pushes me between its polar opposites
and I am a splash away from dissolving.
How can I both love and hate how cold I am?
My feet want to melt into this mud-path,
slide into the river and become tail again.
Memories are never completely erased and I am
more water than anything else. Why am I
thinning myself to an upright pitch
corseted into shoes and waterproofs?
Every swimmer knows a mistake was made.
Hannah Linden won Cafe Writers Poetry Competition 2021, Highly Commended Wales Poetry Award 2021, 2nd prize Leeds Peace Poetry Prize 2024. Her debut pamphlet, The Beautiful Open Sky (V. Press) shortlisted for Saboteur Award for Best Poetry Pamphlet 2023, debut collection due with Blue Diode Press 2027 BlueSky: @hannahl1n.bsky.social
More work by Hannah Linden
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