Death came so close
it grazed my skin
magicked my shoulder blades to wings
and I flew to where I couldn't say but in
the few moments I had gone the Earth
re-birthed itself became luminous
not only the obvious: animals trees flowers
but slug slime a half-eaten rat and a chipped peg
clipped to a washing line; the moon yellowed brighter
and musicked its journey across the sky
and such beauty was there that for days
I wept on waking as I lifted milk from the fridge
topped and tailed beans or cleaned the kitchen floor
but just as aftershocks subside little by little
the moon paled and silenced its song
even the trees and the bright birds lost their shine
and all that was left was this longing of mine.
Veronica Aaronson’s first collection Nothing About the Birds Is Ordinary This Morning (2018 Indigo Dreams) was put forward for the 2020 Laurel Prize. One of the poems from the collection was chosen for the Scottish Poetry Library’s Best Scottish Poems Anthology 2019. One of the poems from her second collection Emily’s Mothers (Dempsey and Windle, 2020) was nominated for the Forward Prize for Best Individual Poem in 2019. Her pamphlet Telling Tales has just been published by 4Word Press.