Phoebe Allcott Bog Child
There ’ s a slice of water . The world is quiet . It ’ s a sweating place . Green and soggy . Life multiplies and congeals inside wet pools . Swollen , slimy embryos pulsating under pebble discs . On land , heather combs the wind . Bristle . Bristle . Bristle . A cloud . Then a shadow . It casts itself across dry browning moss which cools , then moistens . Nothing is dry here . Dry things drink and drink until they soften and break apart . This place is damp . Soft bushes and small trees hang low and dank . Mist rolls over earth swellings , bumps and dips . Ground that squelches and burps . She burps too . Poor girl , poor girl . Green , brown and grey . A frenzy of rain drowns it all . The still , grey water fizzes white . She looks like she is boiling . Her flesh churning in a bubbling broth of nature ’ s house . She is a house now too . Softening skeleton . Flesh tent . She is vacant . She must be filled . Ears , nose , mouth , genitals and between the toes . Dragonflies twitch in her hair , pinching like hairclips . Frogspawn pulses under her tongue . Her eyes are gone . Now holes instead . A shelter for small beetles , clicking and buzzing inside clefts of skull . A wet place for life to soak in greening pools . Just like her . She was meant for the earth . The soil should have her , have her and keep her but she is sodden and floating . She is gone . Teething at the threshold . The bank , the soggy bank . There ’ s a slice of water . The world is quiet . She bobs , marinading . Bloating , vascular marbling , a discoloured thing . She looks alive when the wind goes woosh … Is she a she still ? Is she a her ? Creature , creature . Unhappy thing .
94