In the burrowing slowness of indifference
worm felt her middle jerk
watched eyeless as space opened
heard wind whisper if you only could
comprehend boggle-headed where a turn can take you.
She wrote an ‘S’ in the air and flicked
dirt from every violent coil.
Worm hurtled down.
Felt the invertebrate column, boudin
the distant squeeze
the corpulent patchwork of creosote, the wind
that laughed as blackbird lost his catch.
She landed. Salt licked
parts sliced apart.
And there found salvation
torpedoed amidst spinning waves
flesh washed on a beach, coiled like a fossil.
Flung, subaltern.
She stretched and with the tide she walked.
worm felt her middle jerk
watched eyeless as space opened
heard wind whisper if you only could
comprehend boggle-headed where a turn can take you.
She wrote an ‘S’ in the air and flicked
dirt from every violent coil.
Worm hurtled down.
Felt the invertebrate column, boudin
the distant squeeze
the corpulent patchwork of creosote, the wind
that laughed as blackbird lost his catch.
She landed. Salt licked
parts sliced apart.
And there found salvation
torpedoed amidst spinning waves
flesh washed on a beach, coiled like a fossil.
Flung, subaltern.
She stretched and with the tide she walked.
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Emily Munro is a writer, filmmaker, and curator based in Glasgow. She was longlisted for the 2023 Caledonia Novel Award and the 2022 Briefly Write Poetry Prize. She has been published in various journals, zines and anthologies. Much of her writing and film work is concerned with our ambivalence towards both past and future in the Anthropocene. Emily's archive documentary about the climate crisis, Living Proof: A Climate Story (2021), was nominated for a FOCAL International Award.
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