Hillsmoke

Our cold hills burn silent
in the night’s mouth,
briar-lipped with forgotten heather.

The millstones hold the smoke
in plural, a hillside too
has its lungs.

We take our words with us,
like churchyard feet
rub smooth the grave-path.

Our sooted voices
rasp words of inflected mica,
our speech is a stone
a rhythm
shook loose
an unseen pebble
tumbles in the
windless vault.

Daniel Fraser is a writer and critic living in London. His work has featured in the Los Angeles Review of Books, Berfrois, Gorse, the Quietus, Music and Literature, Black Sun Lit and 3AM Magazine among others. Find him on Twitter @oubliette_mag. Website: www.oubliettes.org