Four by Erica Hesketh

Four

After A. A. Milne

When you were one, I stared into the shifting

waters of your face and encountered myself.

When you were two, we were twin breezes,

sky and sea meeting, a looping moon and sun.

When you were three, we built the universe

from first principles, toiling side by side.

And everything was possible, or mendable,

and we were our own frame of reference.

But then you were four, the age of memory,

and the wax cylinder began to turn.

Erica Hesketh is a poet and editor, originally from Japan and Denmark, now based in London. Her debut collection In the Lily Room was published by Nine Arches Press in 2025, and her pamphlet To an Unknown Receiver: Sonnets & Cascades has just been published by Guillemot Press. From 2016 to 2024 she was director of the Poetry Translation Centre, and she is currently artistic director of Winchester Poetry Festival.