Poem
Clare Pollard
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When you must climb the slippery hill, a woman’s back bruisedtender with heather, & frozen puddles are fingernails gone bad,
then someone is to blame.
When you must wade for miles through ragged-robin, the rain-knives
& bog-rosemary to beg alms, when the neighbours owe you oats,
then someone is to blame.
When your children curdle like milk & turn one by one to clay dolls,
& your husband’s fledgling-weak & you’re a good Christian woman,
then someone is to blame.
When you dream of a woman fucking goats or men with horns;
of waking the witch, swimming her — lime-scalded & vice-tight,
then someone is to blame.
When you imagine her face yoked in a bridle & you want to slit
below her heart & suck there; weigh her weight against a bible,
then someone is to blame.
When the merlin steals hen-chicks & your fields are blighted
like a mouthful of black teeth, & your cow stark mad
then someone is to blame.
© 2008, Clare Pollard
Publisher: First published on PIW,
Publisher: First published on PIW,
Clare Pollard
(United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, 1978)
Clare Pollard grew up in Bolton and later read English at Cambridge University. She now lives in London where she teaches poetry at the City Lit. She has published three collections of poetry with Bloodaxe: The Heavy Petting Zoo (1998), Bedtime (2002) and Look, Clare, Look! (2005). The first of these was largely written while she was still at school and she was subsequently chosen by the Poetry...
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Poems of Clare Pollard
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When you must climb the slippery hill, a woman’s back bruisedtender with heather, & frozen puddles are fingernails gone bad,
then someone is to blame.
When you must wade for miles through ragged-robin, the rain-knives
& bog-rosemary to beg alms, when the neighbours owe you oats,
then someone is to blame.
When your children curdle like milk & turn one by one to clay dolls,
& your husband’s fledgling-weak & you’re a good Christian woman,
then someone is to blame.
When you dream of a woman fucking goats or men with horns;
of waking the witch, swimming her — lime-scalded & vice-tight,
then someone is to blame.
When you imagine her face yoked in a bridle & you want to slit
below her heart & suck there; weigh her weight against a bible,
then someone is to blame.
When the merlin steals hen-chicks & your fields are blighted
like a mouthful of black teeth, & your cow stark mad
then someone is to blame.
PENDLE
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