Read - KATIE METCALFE

Selected Published Articles

Jewelry For The Dead
The Rising Of Thrjár Jewelry
Pär Stromberg : Those Of The Unlight
Jana Heidersdorf : Exploring The Fantastical And Feral
Whitby Goth Weekend : A Gathering Of Friendly Darklings

Gnomes And Trolls : Inside John Bauer's World
Finding Astrid Lindgren In Sweden

Selected Poems

Pinecone

I couldn't quite believe in you
to begin with.

I thought there was another reason
I was no longer synced
with the waxing and waning
of the moon.

When the midwife couldn't locate you
in the basement of my belly,
I expected her voice to soften,
for her to explain you were but a phantom,
and that I could go home.

But then you emerged,
a familiar but unfamiliar
outline in the dark.

Pine cone.
You were the size of a pine cone.

The midwife pointed out your spine
as you turned. She pointed out your hands,
which melted in and out of view.

She directed my attention
to where your heart was tucked in
and quietly roaring.

Your energy alarmed me.
You danced so furiously.

And you waved, like you knew
you were being watched,
like you already knew
you were something extraordinary.

Slug
You are a beast.

The length from the tip of my middle finger
to where my hand meets my wrist.

Your body is darker
than an Antarctic winter,
but while you look formidable,

you're mostly water,
and so prone to ruin it's tragic.

I'm fascinated by your external anatomy.
The ridges on your tail remind me
of the belly of a humpback whale
I once saw off the shore of Iceland.

Your saddle shaped mantle, hiding
your reproductive organs is kingly.

I crouch down, being careful
not to shadow you.

I eavesdrop in on the tiny bites
you're taking from the smallest
living plant I've ever seen.

Your optical tentacles shift.
I know they'll retract if I get too close.

You'll move to safety,
as quickly as you can,
but slowly, a rhythmic wave.
I want to stay crouched here,
until you're satisfied.

I know your kind are unlucky,
prayed on by everything.

I used to cringe at the likes of you
when I was small.

But I didn't know Native Americans
used you to heal toothache.

I didn't know you embody
the divine masculine and feminine.

Though I did think the mucus you left,
that essence of your life, was beautiful,
the way it sparkled on the carpet.

But I still remember the terrifying way
my heartbeat flickered when dad
spread eggshells and coffee grounds
over the vegetable patch.

He told me your kind
could destroy the plants faster
than they could grow.

I just thought about how much
the broken eggs would hurt,
and if the wounds could heal.

The Ice Is Dead

No more is the Arctic everlasting cold.

The death of the ice has driven us south.

We waited until the rain came,
until our snow houses thawed
and everything we'd ever known
blurred into non-existence.

We left in boats,
crouched, small, tight, afraid.

There was nothing above whispers,
the screams of our ancestors
echoing loudly enough
in our ears.

We all left, except the elders.
There was no other place for their souls
than where the ice went.

We left them singing to a weak aurora.

It was due north always.
Now there is no north to go back to.

We first tasted disaster
when birds with red breasts came,
a bird for which the Inuit has no name.

When we saw, for the first time,
fat grizzlies touching noses
with emaciated polar bears.

When flowers bloomed earlier,
when ice broke up before it should.

There were whispers about the permafrost,
that it had been disturbed and there was
no more time to put it to sleep

When the grease from the meat
tasted like chemicals.

When the air was choked with the sound of gulls.
When there was open water everywhere.

Everything ancient went to fast,
Nanook, the moon whale, the walrus.

The north is dead now.

Some say that in the Arctic,
nothing is ever really lost,
but they're wrong.

The cold is never come back.