/ Jane Burn
The World of the Moon
Listen! Lean over the windowsill, just far enough
to feel dangerous. Just enough for the sill to press
into your chest. Ears can tune to pin-drops, lock
onto a moan a dozen streets away. I am the sounds
of night, I eavesdrop on a duller world, unlit save
for my muted beam. On moors, the quail speckled
to the ground like stones – the whisper of them
soughing up feathers for warmth. On luciferin seas
I hear the clear, crisp knifing of whale backs –
the phosphorescent fizz of plankton blankets broken
by their crowning spines. On roadsides – the faintest
scratch of rabbit claw, burrowing into pockled verges.
Hear the wind – silt your ears with the sound
of human shout, of traffic buzz; of hoot and squawk.
The cry of someone’s baby, somewhere, needing milk.
Your ossicles will thrill to the finely distilled noises
of the dark – all this dusk, it is mine; and while
you stare out with me, it is yours.
Jane Burn is a writer and artist based in the
North East of England. Her poems have
been featured in numerous magazines
and anthologies. Her first pamphlet was
published by Talking Pen in 2015 and she
also established the online magazine,
The Fat Damsel in the same year.