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Clare Morris is a performance poet, writer, reviewer and editor. Her first collection, ‘Devon Maid Walking’, was nominated for the Forward Prize. She is the editor of ‘The Jawbone Journal’, which will be launched in Autumn 2024.
I knew your meaning long before I’d learned your name,
The dread that lurks in the near-dawn dark
When sleep is a frail and distant thing
And worry waits with hangman’s hands.
Marks on dried cow skin soon fade,
Cracking along veins clogged with chatter
But you remain adamantine, whole,
Turning indifferent shoulders to timely elisions,
Unchanged by the cut and thrust of centuries
And always your voice, dogwatch whispering,
Wagging with delight at the tail end of night.
Poem published in collection Devon Maid Walking, 2023, Jawbone Collective
Uhtceare: an Old English word that refers to the sensation of lying awake, plagued by worries, just before dawn.
Collection:
Devon Maid Walking, 2023, Jawbone Collective. £8. ISBN 978-1-7392932-2-2
Copyright© of all poems featured on this site remains with the poet
