Ian Humphreys
Tormentil
I can’t face the big stuff
so I comb the moors
for a tiny yellow flower,
treasured in wartime
for healing wounds.
Some named it Bloodroot
or Flesh and Blood,
others, Shepherd’s Knot.
Up here, its gold thread
creeps through boggy
peatland grass. Splashes
of sun under a dark sky.
Hairspray
It smelled like cheap wet paint
and pear drops. Got stuck
at the back of your throat. Vinyl
nails lacquered red. Ella spinning
on the turntable. Vermouth.
Brand new tights. Cleopatra
eyeliner. Zips, buckles, spritzer.
Two ropes of freshwater pearls.
Two lipsticks snapped shut
in a beige suede clutch. One boy
hovers by the dressing table.
Immoveable as her piled-high locks
with clip-on curls. Won’t budge.
Cotton grass, late spring
When tiredness drums,
lie down softly and
sift white clouds
through worn fingers,
the moss-plumped rock
your pillow.
Beyond the ridge,
traffic rasp rises and falls—
a giant’s breath
at your neck.
Let the earth-herb scent
of heather, pre-bloom
sail and settle.
Cotton-sprawled and lulled
by curlew song
like a new-born
adrift in
mother-rhythm
turn away from
the forest with no trees,
those shadows in the walls.
Ian Humphreys published his debut collection, Zebra with Nine Arches Press in 2019. It was nominated for the Portico Prize.