poem

Pauline Stainer The Whitening

Seven kings
stir under the chalk quarry
white-fleshed as eels.

Which blizzard
they will ride through
before scouring the turf

I do not know –
blackthorn whitening the wind,
fossil dust rising

but when they emerge
from muffled detonations
into a milky sun

each horse and rider
will be whiter
than the nests of cave-swifts

made from saliva.



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