Poetry by Emily Alice Spivey

Mark Spearman CC



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THE MOVEMENT OF WATER ON LAND

I enter the process of dying
on a small patch of land
by my mother's house

Oak leaf spread, I yield
to ground held by rock held by water
the wind organising
my biped, my mammal
centre
fingers webbed

The language of my serpentine
definitively slippery, I push on
each toe, until they erode
like weapons

I carry the burden to the place
where the rock is warm, my pelvis
flying

In search of nectar; honey-fied
I taste
the double helix; in the background
my mother swims

She sighs, kind
and murmuring. Blind
she kicks
Propelling

In the shallows, I remain
biting
In the shallows
I swallow my tail
the land

my only want.

I climb the shore, braided sweet—coiled
I lay eggs
in lines
and watch them hatch

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Emily Alice Spivey is a somatic artist exploring how the body exists in language through spoken word, performance and writing. Rooted in her relationship to remote landscapes, writing is an embodied practice for Emily, with the intent of translating a planetary fabric of moving forms onto the page. She studied on the Masters in Creative Writing at The University of Cambridge, has had work published in Propel Magazine, Litro Magazine and Haus-A-Rest. In 2025 she was artist-in-residence at The Mawddach Residency in Wales, and her non-fiction debut 'My Body Is An OS Map' was shortlisted by The Emma Press.



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