Turbulence by Alice Stainer

Turbulence

The wind pummels heath

and cliff and shaw, whooshes

under lintels. Everywhere

there are jagged edges,

gnash of tooth and crag

and casement pane: they cut

soul-deep, scar like peat hags.

Nothing is bloodless.

The gale blusters round tops,

blasts into unseen ravines;

black eyes glister like bog-pools,

cruel hands claim possession,

their imprints vein-blue.

They’ll endure long beyond flesh.

A savage gust deranges

last year’s leaves

but some things never bend,

were always broken.

Shattered pieces find their match,

grind uneasily along perpetual

faults, then release their energy

to the keeping

of that enduring storm.

Alice Stainer teaches English Literature to visiting students at the University of Oxford and is also a musician and dancer. Her work appears in Atrium, Ice Floe Press, Iamb, Feral Poetry, and The Storms, amongst other places, and has been nominated for Best of the Net, the Pushcart Prize and the Forward Prize. She has recently submitted her first pamphlet and can be found on X @AliceStainer.