Compression
i run a sharp fingernail over a selection of the pores
want to write my anger
a pair of black leather gloves
the rise of the right
a cobweb has been compressed
i need them to forgive me – no, not that
paint peeling from the lid, punch
will i be able to read my own script
full of flesh and juice and sunlight
i need not to contact two of the people
an A5 journal flat under the weight of my elbow
i can’t afford this
it fits comfortably in my hand
i want to burn those photos
an algorithm printed on a piece of paper
can i be a writer if i don’t believe
Connectivity
I am told that I need to dig a trench, twenty centimetres wide and thirty centimetres deep. A trench that maps the length of the bedroom wall. I dig and cut and scrape, stitch heavy stones into a ragged border. I develop small blisters and cuts that I will only feel when I later wash away the layered dirt. I attack the thick ghost veins of the Meyer lemon tree that I had removed six months ago. That tree had succumbed to scale insects and then after that to my rusting saw. Now the old root stock had taken its revenge, birthing small demon trees, a fragrant green amongst the grey. I follow those roots a metre deep, follow them for an hour, for more than an hour, follow them over and under the white skin of the NBN cable that shelters under a skimmer of sand. I pull them, trace the branching paths of them, burrow and claw at them with my chipped fingernails. Two of them dwindle down to no more than loose threads that I pull free. The third will not move, its bulk providing a stability that I cannot overcome. With a sharp sigh, I pick up my spade and bring it down. Hard. Split it in two.
Darrelle Spenceley lives and writes by the sea. She was Highly Commended in ArtzBlitz 2025 and was shortlisted in the Ada Cambridge Poetry Prize 2025. She is a winner of The Letter Review Prize for Poetry (April 2023) and was also shortlisted in the Kathryn Purnell Poetry Prize (2023). Her work appears in anthologies including The Adas 2025, Brushstrokes 2024, Play, Sparx (Vol.8 and Vol.9), The Plaza Prize Anthology, and Lockdown, and she has completed her first poetry collection, pre(fix).
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