3rd Prize – 2024
To Poison – Sue Davies
(after chemotherapy)
You adore unadulterated green, nature’s favourite,
and praise it as you might Rothko’s colour mounts –
my pain buried in his surface purity. Although you
seem to take pleasure in simplicity, what really
turns you on, are hidden trace elements – arsenic
toxic as cyanide embedded in bitter-sweet apple pips;
lead kindling madness; mercury blindness.
Your kisses are narcissistic, mine like homage to a god.
Venom lies at the root of your alchemy, in oak,
bay, laurel, in the shallow allure of flowers –
those cunning tricksters – belladonna, wormwood,
mandrake, foxgloves capping fingertips to stop a heart.
While the fates snip the stings of life, you are
indifferent, marvelling at the ancients, Sumerians,
Mesopotamians who threshed and winnowed
poppy husk. I think an apology from you is
a cover for malice. I sense you did love me once,
a love tainted by vanity. You entered my blood
promising to save me. I saw dark crimson bands
on walls of the opium den, my arms pale birchwood,
my bones hollow as a heron, its plumes ash-grey,
stalking the shallows. But what am I now?
a paper cut out in aquarelle, opaque, radioactive,
Osiris Blue eyes knapped white. Glowing
from within, I’m rendered pure, abstract,
your latest work of untitled art.