Goblin Combe
There, at the foot of the limestone crag,
I found the doe stumbling with both her front legs
snapped—
and who could help but gasp? We shared
a panicked glance as she began to drag
her load back up the slope. Up,
up, the only route
she knew, as her forelegs windmilled on hinges
of skin, breaking
as she went, the necks
of bluebells, which buckled and ceased their nodding.
The poor creature must have leapt by mistake
off the cliff. Somewhere
above, a buzzard
circled, casting its net of shadow. Soon.
I see her still
scaling the hillside, on her elbows
all day and utterly haggard, waiting for that instinct
we reserve exclusively for beasts: a gun,
a gun.
For God’s sake somebody fetch a gun.
Top Secret
At woodland’s edge
it appears: a hexagonal net of ivy
demarcating the pillbox.
Peacetime has left a hip-wide gap
between centenarian oak
and entranceway, commanding
a sort of soldier crawl
from trunk to root, until
entrenched in the concrete
dark.
An intrusion. A torch.
An apparition overhead: scraps
of shadow folded in half
to hibernate. Upside-down
and almost black—not bats but
peacock butterflies primed for
frost.
They hang like pocket maps
of Africa, hinged on Egypt.
They hang like little antitheses
of lanterns. They hang like the
silence
after a coffin is lowered
and all the mourners stand around
in their drab apparel, not wanting
to be the first to
leave.
Edged in ink, these papery
messengers have posted themselves
through the letterbox loopholes
only to be opened by one
warm dawn in March. For now
they close their eyespots to mimic
sleep.
Between one wingbeat
and the next, a winterlong dream
of courtship. A mirrored flotilla
awaiting the soft explosion
of blackthorn into
blossom.
Naomi Madlock is a chronically ill poet who lives in the UK. Her work is featured in The Shore, Anti-Heroin Chic, Kingfisher Magazine, LEON Literary Review, and others. She is a member of the Bristol-based poetry performance group Braid, alongside Kaycee Hill and Kate Noakes. At the University of Exeter, she was awarded the Gamini Salgado Prize for her dissertation collection She Writes in Golden Ink. Her work draws inspiration from nature to articulate themes of stagnation, resilience, and surrender. You can find her on Instagram @naomi_madlock_poet
