The Ofi Press Magazine

Poems by Abegail Morley (UK)

Published in The Ofi Press issue 50 

footnote (i)

I’m rested like old Cambric cloth,

limp binding thread, I smell of the dank edge of autumn.

I’ve crawled from a thick wood’s murk at 3a.m.,

waited for the dawn chorus to inhale, scaled

the shoulder blades of pine trees in second hand

shoes. I’ve unpricked my ears to vixen,

unknelt before a trunk, unhasped a word

from my ear. I have learnt how to undo

in a perfect order.

footnote (ii)

She says a drop of blood is an unbroken sun,

twists her bracelet between fingers,

almost unnoticed.

I wonder how the sun sees her,

a fledgling lost in the landscape,

or something asleep,

pullulated, a thought that

hasn’t yet raised its hackles

or objected to the conversation.

​

​ 

Hair's breath 

He tells me not to loosen my hair,

to wear it as if it’s light escaping nets

splaying on sea’s soft thighs,

gleaming on a neap tide. He says

to poke it with hooks till it’s stacked

upright, tangled like dabberlocks, so fish

squeeze their bodies between strands,

ease their abdomens through,

sift my mind, fins washing flesh.

I wonder if I’ll return, proud hair

toppling from pins’ rib, fronds doused

by wave’s stubborn tongue.

I see his lips twist in a Kirby-grip grin,

consider how sometimes things end

painfully like hair ripped from its roots,

skin sloughed at the shoreline.