Yorkshirewoman Louise Wilford is a teacher and writer who has had poems and short stories published in a wide variety of journals including Southword, The Stinging Fly, Acumen, Agenda, Orbis, OWP, Lyonnesse, Pushing Out The Boat and Tears In The Fence. She is currently working on a children’s fantasy novel and is about to embark on an MA in Creative Writing.
Desert
Filled up and emptied out,
wind-washed through a rock forest,
stone lozenges piled high in variegated towers.
There God squats, at the tip of that worn, feral totem,
seeping into the sunset like a toxin in the blood.
There the weariness fades, drifts off like a bored crowd,
thoughts tidy themselves to a whisper,
the silence at its heart drowning their racket.
There the million beiges, metallic striations
slithering through sand-curved earth,
fold into the sun’s long shadow,
coaxing the soul to follow.
Dream into this withering heat, dry air dripping
fragments of thought into the sluggish evening;
sleep into this falling darkness,
the slow sullen chill infecting your breath.
Let him weave you into his wild sand-god’s story,
lace you into his black, black night.
Louise Wilford