-nature is taxonomy which all small bones resist- By Alice Tarbuck

   Lauren Treece Flickr CC



-nature is taxonomy which all small bones resist –

give me leviathan trace, give me roiling sea-beast, give me
un-nameable terror that lurks, give me

chucked rock, split on a beach, with something
unseen inside, something makes no sense

of unknown birds held inside boulders, of teeth
enough to fill pockets, enough for new mouths

bestiaries laden with despicable tongues
double-spines, impossible articulation

outside the cabin door, allow a thump,
a set of footprints never before trod,

bring me cinder-hot salamanders, birds
hatched in fire that scream in smoke, mammals

that hunt by intuition, feed on stray thoughts, solid
footprints that lead down centuries, into the basement of

what might be – every one of us an expert in myriad bones
in bringing meaning up from the dirt and singing to it,

rubbing it with our thumbs, coaxing it into life, of fashioning
our world again to hold it. Let nobody sing taxonomy

it is a lost system: expect the bones to speak in tongues
expect the artefact to shiver away from your hands

​

Alice Tarbuck is a poet and academic living in Edinburgh. She is part of 12, a women’s poetry collective, and her first pamphlet, Grid, is published by Sad Press.