Take heart in the dark

by laura hemmington

It happens by the traffic lights. The ring road seagull spears, and then excises, the

wood pigeon's heart. I'd always dreamed of being a sea-pigeon, plump and salty, so I

stop to watch. The lamps come on, just a flicker at first. Then a smoked skin,

smoker’s skin, fish hung and dried on poles in a shed skin, spreads over the scene.

The seagull leaves. Perhaps to splash water on its own speckled chest. But with no

heart of my own, I am safe. Even in the sunset of another, I can hide beneath the

pooling light and climb in to the still warm body. Wrap the lilac breast around my

own. And go home to roost, my chest full, my dreams of flight in hand.

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Laura Hemmington is a writer and freelance copywriter who lives and writes on the Isle of Wight. Her poems have appeared in Crab Creek Review, Visual Verse, Emerge, and No Contact.

@laurahemmington