by Jess Williams

It is midday and I go to re-wild myself.
From the confines of a spreadsheet cell and a filing system
I roll out of the air conditioning and into the air.

Alone-but-not, for full of the cacophony of song and hum 
and click and strum, I wade into moving water. 
I become a giant, above notice for the boatmen skating past.

The crisp white shirt billows,
letting the breeze whisper secrets
to my naked body, shaking out my fur.

I walk barefoot in the woods, 
possessive of the dirt-encrusted skin 
that is hardy with the articulation of use.

Sometimes I climb, crimping fingers against knotted places.
Later, typing the words of others, I savour the ache, 
the strong grip on bark pulls me up through that hollow space.

I return as a creature. 
I am full of the scent of poetry, a feral thing in an office chair.
I swim through the afternoon to emerge relieved on the other bank.


Jess Williams | @jessandotherstories 
Jess Williams lives in Cambridge where she writes down poems she finds in the hollows of trees or behind the sofa.