Flounder

     “[Fallen women] are also portrayed on, or by, bridges, so explicit
     did the imaginative link seem [to Victorians] between the ‘fallen’
     woman and her possible literal ‘fall’ thereafter as she jumps
     into the water to commit suicide.”
       – ‘The Fallen Woman’ exhibition notes, Foundling Museum
 
 
Barely a shock to the cocky mud-larks raking
the river-shore for spoils. Here is a ha’penny,
 
here a brooch, a snapped stem of gentleman’s
pipe, carved bone clagged with clay, but still
 
worth the pocketing. The Thames is a pickler,
preserving the city’s detritus in its own juices,
 
a broth of the unwanted. And here she is, fish
out of water flopped on the fore-shore, silver
 
skinned and belly up, a twist of saturated skirts
making a mermaid’s tail. Hardly Ophelia, no
 
weedy bouquets clasped in her un-ringed left
hand, the luxury of grand gestures beyond her
 
grasp. A proscenium sweep of bridge keeps
her obscenity from offending a god who’d
 
never heard of her. There is no baptism found
in these waters. No forgiveness gleaned in the
 
soupy tide. Only limbs, limp; the dampness
of new death: and the river’s uncleansed bride.
 

Sarah Doyle

published in The Fenland Reed, issue 5, 2017

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Owl

Transparent as the ghost of herself,
she is the silent rush of air: knife-edged,
camouflage-mottled. She is chameleonic,
the colour of tree-bark, of old leaves,
evening skies browning around her.
She is serrated ailerons, micro-turbulence,
swallowing sound as she digests the night.
Noiseless as cloud, wings velvet-
muffled, all whispered velocity, she is
a thresher of air, spinner of vortices.
In the final, thorn-sharp kiss,
field-mouse: you won’t know a thing.
Field-mouse, you won’t know a thing
in the final, thorn-sharp kiss.
A thresher of air, spinner of vortices,
muffled, all whispered velocity, she is
noiseless as cloud-wings, velvet
swallowing sound as she digests the night.
She is serrated ailerons, micro-turbulence,
evening skies browning around her,
the colour of tree-bark, of old leaves,
camouflage-mottled. She is chameleonic.
She is the silent rush of air, knife-edged,
transparent as the ghost of herself.
 

Sarah Doyle

shortlisted in the WoLF (Wolverhampton Lit Fest) Poetry Prize
and published in the competition anthology, 2018

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Corn Dolly

I am the last of harvest,
limbs blonded brittle
by the late late sun.
I am hollow-boned
at All Hallows: reedy,
 
yellow-piped, stick-arms
flung cruciform open
in an embrace of gold.
I am stiff-skirted, wide
legged, fecund and
 
pregnant with home-
spun magic. I am
a threshing of seasons,
the safe-guarding of
plenty preserved in
 
my belly. I am all
the reaper’s rewards,
cut from the final
sheaf, bundled and
twisted into promise.
 

Sarah Doyle

first published in Samhain anthology, Three Drops Press, 2016;
Reprinted in several anthologies, 2017 and 2018

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William De Morgan’s Blackbird Vase

 
 
Such an
elegant
neck. It
curves
fleetingly
outwards into
roundness, a bulb
of blues. Piscine
scales declare
themselves
in cobalt,
balanced
on a bold
cerulean
collar. Here is a
ceramic chimney stack in
miniature, broadening round the
belly, clothed in summer’s leaves and
bristling fatly with blackbirds who sing
beneath their glaze. A potter’s hands knew
 them, coaxed the wet clay of their globe,
imposed fire. Brush-tips gilded wing
feathers with flashes of purple. The
birds do not recall this. Painted
eyes look out, curious, as
their owners strain
eternally to fly.
 
 

Sarah Doyle

published in the Pre-Raphaelite Society’s Review, Volume XXIV, No. 2, Summer 2016

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