Blog

20th October, 2023

Friday Poem: ‘Daughter II’ by Deryn Rees

Daughter 2. Deryn Rees-Jones. From Burying the Wren.

This week’s Friday Poem is ‘Daughter II’ by Deryn Rees-Jones from her collection Burying the Wren. Deryn’s poem ‘Consider the Lillies’, first published by Modron Magazine, was recently Highly Commended in the Forward Prizes for Poetry.

Daughter II 

Blake’s angel, what makes you? 
Blood, bone mineral? The black space
that creates the universe, would 

if it could, suck everything in? 
Sometimes
I hardly dare look, the night

losing its own face to the senses 
as you, with those owlish eyes 
little ribs, not long since

shocked into light 
and an appetite
and your damp hair like feathers

nuzzle in beside me, 
no one to answer 
or answer to. Only 

an unlearned joy when you wake 
which is ours: your breath on my skin 
enough to stop a heart, 

to darn the threadbare morning.