Desert by Louise Wilford




Yorkshirewoman Louise Wilford is a teacher and writer who has had poems and short stories published in a wide variety of journals including Southword, The Stinging Fly, Acumen, Agenda, Orbis, OWP, Lyonnesse, Pushing Out The Boat and Tears In The Fence.  She is currently working on a children’s fantasy novel and is about to embark on an MA in Creative Writing.






Filled up and emptied out,

wind-washed through a rock forest,

stone lozenges piled high in variegated towers.


There God squats, at the tip of that worn, feral totem,

seeping into the sunset like a toxin in the blood.


There the weariness fades, drifts off like a bored crowd,

thoughts tidy themselves to a whisper,

the silence at its heart drowning their racket.


There the million beiges, metallic striations

slithering through sand-curved earth,

fold into the sun’s long shadow,

coaxing the soul to follow.


Dream into this withering heat, dry air dripping

fragments of thought into the sluggish evening;

sleep into this falling darkness,

the slow sullen chill infecting your breath.


Let him weave you into his wild sand-god’s story,

lace you into his black, black night.  


Louise Wilford