Stuart Charlesworth
Biography
Stuart Charlesworth was commended by Pascal Petit in the 2018 Brittle Star Competition, has an MA in Creative Writing from UEA, is a learning disabilities nurse and helps run Café Writers in Norwich. He has appeared in Butcher’s Dog, Cake, IS&T, Lighthouse, Magma, Poetry Review, Proletarian Poetry, The Rialto, Under The Radar and Strix. He has recently been working on a first collection under the mentorship of Sean O'Brien. This poem is a late edition to his collection manuscript, but has not appeared elsewhere.
The Poem
After Emily Dickinson
I plucked guilt from a swinging bough
and ate up to the stone,
it roughly rubbed against my tongue —
I threw it to the ground
from which a crooked shrub plant grew,
as fibrous as old flax.
The canny hands of winters’ frost
wove from it — a dress.
I found it waiting on my hook
by the coats at school —
I wore it underneath my skin
so that it wouldn’t show.
It weighed so little, I’d forget
that it was there at all —
by summertime, it took offence
and burned me till I bled.
The teacher saw how I was ill
and sent me home to mother;
but I went to the wood — afraid
that plant had gotten fatter
and found instead — a smiling wolf
atop a standing stone.
I whispered what I wore, she leapt
aside to make some room.