Sarah-Jane Crowson

MOUSE BONES

slight
a brittle marionette
you smell of nothing
not even ants

if there is a song of mouse bones it is a villanelle,
a dance which repeats itself
small & inconsequential

mouse bones chant old songs inside the hills

to tiny fossils 

the language of mouse bones is fast-beat, scatter-pawed warmth
faint words      

even when magnified by glass            read only

quietening 
despite
interlinked
land &             air.

Sarah-Jane Crowson lives in rural Herefordshire. Her poetry can be read in various journals, including Muddy River Poetry Review and the Wales Haiku Journal. Her poetry has been shortlisted for the Haiku Foundation’s ‘Touchstone’ award, and the Canterbury Festival ‘Poet of the year’ award. Sarah-Jane works as an educator at Hereford College of Arts, and writes mostly late at night, trying not to spill coffee over the paper.