Second Prize: Aurora Haselfoot Flint, the god-tree

Aurora Haselfoot Flint

Second Prize - 2025 Tower Poetry Competition, 'Roots'

the god-tree

hey, god-tree,

curl your roots about my body//

god-tree, girl-tree,

i -- your honey-suckled babe -- am here;

here with the deer-pelt and the under-growth.

see me down at your feet,

god-tree,

you with your peeling skin,

your thighs like tree-trunks,

your stomach loose and pregnant.

swollen god-tree, a bole as two:

no insect too small to crawl

between your skin-flakes and burrow a home.

give of me the fruit and i will eat

in bloody ecstasy, mother and daughter,

hag and babe.

fear not the lathe, god-tree//

your every limb a gift for my knife;

my fleeting body the feed for your trough.

dig into me, knife and fork and xylem,

pierce my aching bones and suck the marrow —

you bled, i bleed;

i suckled, you suckle.

god-tree, mother/daughter,

tangled willow-whip hair & naked form,

bare feet and begging hearts,

unstunted and singing,

roots splayed wide

& open.