New verse by Sophie van Waardenberg.

 

unhatched egg/two girls at easter

we are helping to cut down the trees

they say. we know what the hills will look like

when we have finished. they will have burn scars

like we have on our wrists from clumsiness, from baking.

the dog tastes a hundred empty rabbit holes.

in a rooted place in the shadows in pine needles

we find it, we give it a name out of silence,

we share our hands over it, we pretend to love it

then slowly like it is a grenade I wrap it in my pink shirt.

the land rover rocks us until we belimb onto gravel.

at the farmhouse I listen for a beat

before I let go to her. it carries on like this

and in darkness we drag our chairs across the rocks

to be close to the fire. we are gentle we think.

now that we have saved our bird we make plans for its first winter

and when it cracks

against my belly button I tell nobody, not for a night.

in the morning we two bury the fresh-cut shell by the river

where her parents had their honeymoon

and at hot noon with downy arms we swim there

under trees our failure has grown for us so quickly.

 

Sophie van Waardenberg, 2017