They came out to
Watch the moon,
A chalky paleness in the sky,
Wet from an evening’s
Snow, gathering shadows
In a field and hoarding them.
Darkness waited
Dimly in the trees,
As a mother
Slowly, slowly
Withdrawing a child
From her breast,
Falling snow
Pale as milk,
The elusive shapes
Of twilight merging
Haunting, full of
Regret, a cry,
And then silence.
Night swallows all.



Each night
I shed my body

That is devoured
By the desire of man.

On the day of
Death

A songbird echoes
Funeral song

Silently watching as my
Bones grow old

Decayed
And half-forgotten.

Snowflakes began to fall
So thoughtlessly from the sky.

Wing fluttering, a
Butterfly in a rainstorm.

I lie as often as
The sun rises.




I had a doll once, which I hid in
A deep muddy place.

I left it there until
All of the paint flaked off the face.

It was never really
The same again.

I imagine
Death is something like that.


Natalie Crick, from Newcastle in the UK, has poems published in The Moth, Banshee, New Welsh Review and elsewhere. She is studying for an MPhil in Creative Writing at Newcastle University. Her poetry has been nominated for The Pushcart Prize twice, shortlisted for The Anthony Cronin International Poetry Award 2018, commended in the Verve Poetry Festival Competition 2019, commended in the 2019 Hippocrates Open Awards for Poetry and Medicine and one of her poems was a runner-up in the PBS & Mslexia Women's Poetry Competition 2018, judged by Carol Ann Duffy. Natalie's collaborative pamphlet is Co-Incidental 5 (The Black Light Engine Room Press, 2019).