Stalagmite by Hannah Linden

Stalagmite

I cannot hear my footfall. The ground sucks me

quiet with its memories. In this cave, the rust 

of iron I could not mine—more tears

than solutions. Here, the temperature

constant on the edge of coolness. You said

my wildness was childishness. We stopped

talking. Drips and drabs of pain built 

into columns of salt. When did we stop 

listening? Our selective deafness turned into spears. 

Fossil after fossil of animals who believed this 

could be home, their stories on the walls—

predator tooth-marks on their bones. 

Hannah Linden is from a northern working-class background but lives now in ramshackle social housing in Devon, UK. She is published widely, and her most recent awards include 1st prize in the Cafe Writers Poetry Competition in 2021, and highly commended in the Wales Poetry Award 2021. Her debut pamphlet, The Beautiful Open Sky (V. Press), was shortlisted for Best Poetry Pamphlet 2023 in the Saboteur Awards. She's currently working towards her first full poetry collection. Twitter/X: @hannahl1n