Not the dead light we meet above 

uneven rooftops in the back alleys,

but the new-birthed wounds beyond,

with bodies formed of glass.

These stars are named as a burr 

sticks to an unravelled hem:

here’s the rolling pulse at the heart of a shrew,

and the fungus nourished by a tree’s dead core.

This one is the egg that failed to hatch,

blank and rigid as a corpse in the nest.

And the next, her twin, the electric pause

of a startled hare – static, on edge, as it listens again

for the cry. The sky this evening will tear and turn

while the night-river sifts her recurring dream 

and the pike sing their chorus to constellations 

they conspire to spear from beneath.