Back to Issue Ten.

Fruition

BY NAOMI HAMILTON

 

I walk with my sister
beneath pines standing
like veterans in salute,

as if to congratulate her
on the bundle she carries
the size of a grapefruit.

Now the sheen of birch
bark after a mizzle of rain
demands to be seen;

the knotted faces of trolls
begin to ache from
trunks. In five months

even the musk of moist
honeysuckle and a fluster
of pigeons in the canopy

will take on new meaning,
and the body of this child
shall be a living psalm.

Naomi Hamilton is a Northern Irish poet who was fortunate enough to become a Foyle Young Poet of the Year, with her poem “The Wilderness” published in The Poetry Society’s 2012 anthology Gorgeous Like a Thunderstorm. Recently she has had work published in Red River Review and Diverse Voices Quarterly.