Natalie Crick

Sunday School

Madeline loves it
And sits as Mother would.
The priest is like her Father
Dressed all in grey,
 
Palms fluttering with
Paper clowns,
Legs and arms spinning anti-clockwise
Like the priest's eyes slide
 
From side to side.
We are his for an hour
But he cannot touch us,
For we are jewels to be watched,
 
And, one day taken.
Nobody has ever held his hand
But Grandmother, with rings like
Little girl's warnings.
 
This is my house of God,
Rain thundering as
Unanswered questions.
Their faces are taught and chilled with frost.
 
 
He is the bee of androgyny
Thrusting candelabras as tusks.
This drone of activity,
It is all too much for me.
 
Faces dumb as naked dolls.
He strips them, licking them with stars
Like potential girlfriends
Or meats to be weighed.

---

And We Are Hiding Now

For some time they sat in the cornfield
And spoke like dull mice
About what would be done.
When the sun, a ruined fruit

Ripped the dilute garden growth
And spread a red alarm over tall shears
The eldest was heard to say
“Bury them in the cellar.”

Skins of lice lamented
Over the pulsing stalks,
Their drones blanched in the air
Curdled and hot.

The house was distant and brown
Weeping a creeping shadow from within,
That seemed to warn: ‘Keep Out'.
A blaze from the forgotten.

Old plastic swing swung over the perimeter,
A goodbye, flinch.

The sky was high and blue.
In the giant shoots
Lurking softly and surreal,
Two ducklings on the gilded shore.

The sea was swimming with flushed young men
Severing feathered heads
With long silver scissors.
Pointed throrns in a paper box.

The woman roared like the man.
“Stop”, said the girls
With frilled socks.
Once the heavens were purple

Like a bruise, the corn
Grew cold and wet.
The house stood waiting, a deadened bulb
With a swift march

They advanced through the field,
Cutting stems.




--
Natalie Crick has found delight in writing all of her life and first began writing when she was a very young girl. Her poetry is influenced by melancholic confessional Women's poetry. Her poetry has been published in a range of journals and magazines including Cannons Mouth, Cyphers, Ariadne's Thread, Carillon and National Poetry Anthology 2013.