Emily Brontë’s on my doorstep.
Under her hem I can see her feet.
She has no shoes on.
I know she will have avoided
Stepping in toadstools, hedgehog
Excreta, worm casts,
Flattened her soles into moss,
Cold clover, mist of dew,
Maybe thorns.
I remember referring to my upland home
As wuthering. Has she come
To snort derision?
She sifts through my heart,
Eyes a forgotten colour, all reproach,
Lofty, lyric,
A shadow on the shelf,
She enters, dissolving in dimity,
Ferocious flare from heath to hearth.
Tapping keys, watching words cascade
I feel her at my back,
Refusing to relent, melt, yield, unbend.
