PULLED OUT
My mum does
pull me
a gentle slab
up into the garden.
I feel it all in side glances
as I trip over clay cast-off eyes
lots of eyes grow-alike
growing alike as my mum’s hands
pulled me from the harbour
the please before the toss
pulled me from the harbour
wrestled me to the bindweed
and the brambles all waiting.
Pouted lip.
I am not destined to build the eden
or mark the path that leads to the house
so keep pulling me
I hold her face, a different hemisphere
lead me beyond the honeysuckled
sucked, shaped for pillowed exotics
you should take them and
give your young hands work to do.
My mum has piled
the wheelbarrow with brick
I want a
promise
Big mama hen. Baba yaga.
A persuasive tongue
driving all the brown back
I collect in my hands
shrug and billow at
my magnet mother
who gets her hands dirty
and licks honey off spoons.
Come and uproot unsplintering
she holds me
all around
my body.
I might like that.
But shove back in bed, I’m still asleep
in my dream system
it’s just the wild sound you see
of mum’s bone erosion.
Haley Jenkins holds a Creative Writing Master's Degree from The University of Surrey and a Creative Writing Bachelor's Degree from The University of Roehampton. In 2016, Haley was awarded First Prize in the Elmbridge Literary Competition for her short story 'Talisman' and in 2014 won 3rd Prize in the Hopkins Poetry Prize. She has been published in two anthologies by Fincham Press - The Trouble with Parallel Universes (2014) and Screams & Silences (2015), as well as publications such as, Guttural Magazine, Tears in the Fence, painted spoken and The Journal of British & Irish Innovative Poetry. Her work has also appeared in online zines such as datableedzine, epizootics and ez.Pzine (Pyre Publishing). Haley's first poetry chapbook was published by Veer Books (August 2017). She also runs Selcouth Station Press.