‘When You Unravel’ by Eleanor Hooker

When a honeybee bumps against glass,
and silences noise your room,
when masonry settles
and a knock at the door is harm,
when your fingertips bleed
and you cannot let go,
when your boat arrives under billowing sail,
and cuts its way through sand,
when they spell your name, Rumour,
and night is dark in you,
when sisterhood means red lipstick,
and poetry reeks of arse,
and you cannot curtesy to myths or ghosts,
when you’re a jar of Chaffinch eggs
your mother put on a train,
to alight a lifetime later,
never to know your birth,
when you sing out of turn
and hoard rain,
when a text from heaven
says omens are signs
and superstitions bad luck
and a mouse dies in your boot,
when the orchard’s reclaimed
by green and thorn,
and a hawthorn sprig spells death,
when you’re no longer of use
and friends unfasten,
and you bleed round the hurt,
when no one hears
you sing out of turn,
and everyone hears
you sing out of tune –
when you birth a stone,
when you no longer care,
and walk to the darkening lake,
step into the trembling water.

From issue 9: autumn/winter 2019

About the Author
Eleanor Hooker is the author of three poetry collections: Of Ochre and Ash (Dedalus Press, 2021), A Tug of Blue (Dedalus Press, 2016) and The Shadow Owner’s Companion (Dedalus Press, 2012). She holds an MPhil (Distinction) in Creative Writing from Trinity College Dublin. She is a Fellow of the Linnean Society of London (FLS). She is helm on Lough Derg RNLI Lifeboat.