Sepulchre

The remains of Winter look set to die in March.
Trees, leaves, undergrowth, tangle and twist
Together, obsessed lovers

Dry as bones in the wind.
The glow and shadows on her face,
In memory, make me dream

She’s home

Until I remember
This house is death’s
Eminent domain.

Scarlet leaves spin like carousels
To feather her resting place,
Sumacs sucking at my blood

Until I lose all colour,
Her whisper and phantom limb
Feasting in the sun.

Fresh Rain

Fresh rain fell
Onto velvet skin

Beneath an open sky.
I seek shelter in you.

Every stranger
Becomes a ghost passing by.

I harvest the fog,
Bathe naked in the waxing moon.

Sometimes I think I hear
The echo of the storm.

Afterlife

At first you could not imagine how
I waited in the shadows.

The sky is blank,
Flesh of no feeling

The sun glowing, spectral,
Rising with the smoke.

A door swings open.
The heavenly music surprises me.

Without invitation, I enter.

Under starry skies, in prairies of
Knee-high corn, I dreamed awake.

Natalie Crick, from Newcastle in the UK, has found delight in writing all of her life and first began writing when she was a very young girl. She graduated from Newcastle University with a degree in English Literature and plan to pursue an MA at Newcastle this year. Her poetry has been published or is forthcoming in a range of journals and magazines including The Lake, Ink Sweat and Tears, Poetry Pacific, Interpreters House and Jet Fuel Review. Her work also features or is forthcoming in a number of anthologies, including Lehigh Valley Vanguard Collections 13. This year her poem, 'Sunday School' was nominated for the Pushcart Prize.