So, I’m a lichen. Not an ordinary
grey-green lichen fattening on a tree
but a brilliant yellow lichen
on the headboard of our bed expanding
like a slow lake or a continent
from the top right-hand corner’s
polished rosewood spiral
down towards the mattress, pustules popping –
like flexing muscles I didn’t know I had
oozing over the bruised folds
of our diamond printed sheets
lichen like a gorgeous golden damask quilt
breeding shot suns over
the frame the floorboards until I’m
lying across the room and all its contents
a pocked yellow dust sheet
moving through the house –
no people, I think they’re all dead –
and over the front door sill, dazzling dazzling…
I have a thirst for damp
extend my yellow white-frilled wings –
hundreds of them thrumming
up the legs of the garden chair, the railings,
across the grey slate roofs,
the tree-line and the broken sky and
don’t stop don’t stop until my tips reach rain…
Sharon Black
Sharon Black is from Glasgow and lives in a remote valley of the Cévennes mountains in France. She has published four full collections, and in 2025 won the Poetry Society’s inaugural Tobias Hill Prize as well as 1st prize in the Kent & Sussex Open.