A Time of Hunger
You will not see me slipping through the door
on the day the freezers break but you might see my face
on the otherside looking at you from another place
I.
You do not see me
filling the freezers with
a new product – the subtle changes
in the pricing on the shelf edge labels
and the packaging hear my unspoken cry -
“How the fuck do we package this?”
Carbohydrates, proteins, fats,
energy in both calories and kilojoules
are all lyingly laid out as if measured in a lab.
Tellingly there is no country of origin or date.
The small rise in price accommodates
the cost of the hunters sent from
Thisworld to the Otherworld
to bring back… venison... pork… beef…
if only it was so simple and those animals
were what we thought they used to be instead of
these trifold shoulders and loins and lolling speaking tongues
these sausages that move like intestines twitching ears
the too-many hooves unsuitable for glue.
Freezing them is the only way forward.
They give me a really thick coat and a pair of gloves
but both are for the right hand and this
does not stop me trembling.
II.
You do not understand what it is like to listen
for the ring at the back door not unlike
fairy bells but without a clanger
to be the one who greets the van
not pulled by not powered by any horses
that can be seen by the naked eye
to greet the driver who drives them eyeless
presses into your hand a canvas of flesh that reels
a pen made from a feather that threatens to pull you up
above the supermarket out of your uniform out of your skin
leaving only cobwebby finger prints palm prints
that might remind you of the time your hands
stuck to a spade or a wheelbarrow and you feared
peeling them off the legends of the icy water horses.
Are you hungry as the beings beneath the ice?
A few swift scratches and they are gone.
III.
You do not know what it is like to dream
of another world coming to life
in the rows of frosty glass
snow tossed from the moving trees
glaring down on the huntress riding cloaked
through the snow driven by the icy spear of her will.
Somedays she wears your face and somedays is faceless as you.
To wake frozen through with cold numb fingers
and toes to count them sigh in relief before
you see the puddling footprints.
IV.
Do not eat the food of the Otherworld.
You think you will always obey this command
yet soon you will be hungry as I was
the day I approached the van all alone
on the summit of Winter Hill in the depths
of mid-winter not a single soul around.
I was so hungry there was nothing to eat.
The sizzle of a burger beneath the silent mast.
The smell of exquisite meat just slightly charred.
The smiling assistant adding lashings of red sauce
squirting from an unknown source to my taste.
There was no choice just one fateful bite
then another and the landscape dissolving like ice
our costumes and the van slipping away...
V.
Have you ever wondered what it would be like
to make a contract with some secret part of yourself
who watches through frosty glass as you work
hood pulled up fingers moving like
ice-rimed shadow puppets?
How they make their puppets
from wood and sinew how they make
them dance across the border?
No strings attached here just me
stocking the freezers with my lance-like probe
ensuring the temperature remains
below minus eighteen degrees.
VI.
You may believe yourself happy
in your land of ever day so long as the ice
does not run out or the water for your paddling pools.
You may wonder about the blue glow of the ice
think it’s a marketing ploy to do with the brand name
although the name “Cherenkov” is whispered
with fears about uranium and mutations.
You know so little about the monsters
of the deep how only the ice holds them back.
Now it’s melting and buried things are awakening
no-one knows how long the doors will hold
how long I will be here as the doorkeeper.
You will not see me slipping through the door
on the day the freezers break but you might see my face
on the otherside looking at you from another place.
LORNA SMITHERS
Lorna Smithers is a poet, author, awenydd, Brythonic polytheist, and devotee of Gwyn ap Nudd. She has published three books: Enchanting the Shadowlands, The Broken Cauldron, and Gatherer of Souls. She blogs at ‘From Peneverdant’.