Sarah Westcott

Old mother moor

is bitter – peat is the thinnest of comforts the bedrock is recalcitrant as teeth

moor like to throw up what she thinks are startling images hanks of hair, scout’s woggle is that the boys’ voices in the tor-wind?

she is deemed map-stuff, trespassed, plucked off oak, surly –

one moor will out-do the others with beauty also: child murders, eagles, stubbed villages, ambivalence

moor is stubborn as the ovaries – a palette – reader is the make-up artiste affixing her self her endeavours slip like martens

moor takes many carcasses but doesn’t care for them as the sea does –

moor’s roots are showing can the coast fold moor and all her juices – little ghosts, the holy lost, into the wet

a saint cannot be dirty-minded

moor is filthy-rich her streams are loaded the farms are mean and desperate as moles

I only know her face by its outline

The features are scattered choicely bridge, view point, eyes too close together

and the heather is a decoy the buzzards know this – turn golden shoulders

towards the heraldry of bin lorries – moor’s name running down the side,

stake-holders talk, talk of re-creation, how to make her pay for it how to make us pay.

Poetry Prize Competition 2017 Winner