𝙾 𝙲 𝙲 𝚄 𝙻 𝚄 𝙼

by Geoff Sawers

In the still, dripping morning a mist of swallows comes swirling, piping, ripping the stitching out of the sky. Soft drums in your fingertips, in your creaking spine. A blanket lies over the land, wet frayed linen, deep drifts of sticky yellow gorse in the lanes snagging your ankles, a roofless chapel like an open mouth, beams like broken teeth; like, like, like. There’s a current in the earth that pulls at the clouds, pulls them down, blackening, to wrap your face and hands in gauze. Call the storm, call the charge from the air, call me out for this. Call the evening star as the swallows circle the hay ricks, faster, faster, and then draw tight with a snap.

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Geoff Sawers has two new books out; Widdershins Walk (with Peter Driver, Peculiarity Press 2025) and has edited and written the introduction for The Complete Short Stories of Dorothy Edwards (Blackthorn Press, 2025). Paintings on Instagram @geoff.sawers