You emerge, bowlegged, and blinking into the sun,
skin paled like fruits before the harvest. I ask where
you’ve been, but you sigh and shake your head
and we tread the path home, careful and unspeaking,
mud emptying from your pockets
like an offering.
I offer a bowl and I offer a bed, but you’re sated
despite all you’ve abstained, and lethargic
despite all you’ve slept.
Awoken from two hundred days of slumber
your burrow beneath the earth both a sanctuary and a sacrifice,
it is the end of hibernation at last.
Hattie Atkins
Hattie Atkins is a Mancunian writer. Her prose and poetry – which often meditates on the intersection between bodies, place, and identity – has appeared in various journals, such as Gutter Magazine and en bloc, and has been anthologised by the Common Breath and Forest Publications. Her poem, ‘Semiotics,’ was the first runner-up in the 2022 Lewis Edwards Memorial Prize. She was selected to write a poetic response to a painting for the 2023 Royal Holloway Picture Gallery Scheme 2023; this poem was then set to music and sung by the Choir of Royal Holloway. Hattie is currently studying for a Master’s degree in Creative Writing at the same university.
OSMOSIS PRESS 