by Christian Ward
“Most mussels stay in one place for their entire lives” the website stated. Dull, obsidian vaults, shutting themselves out to the world. How sad it must be not to taste the forest's window opening to let sunlight tickle your face in the morning, to enjoy snow making everything yeti, to inhale a season's worth of joy in a meadow? Perhaps. Or perhaps it's okay to root yourself in one spot to heal again, to feel the nourishing sea rebuild whatever was lost and is now asking to come back, please can I come back?
Christian Ward is a UK-based poet with new work in Dreich, Dream Catcher, Dodging the Rain and Canary. He was longlisted for the 2023 Aurora Prize for Writing, shortlisted for the 2023 Ironbridge Poetry Competition and 2023 Aesthetica Creative Writing Award, and won the 2023 Cathalbui Poetry Competition.