Jo Hemmant

Gingerbread

I do not act alone you understand,

my way, my voice are hers,

imprinted as a child like an

ammonite's coil, I learned

my mothering there –

to sharpen life, place it

on a high shelf, what might

have been a refrain,

hovering fretfully till they fall

asleep swathed in fairytales,

crows blackeyed in the eaves.

Beware. I am a distillation in a

bottle, pipette fully loaded,

antidote and poison both.

Jo Hemmant is an ex-journalist and editor who is based just outside London,

England. She is relatively new to poetry but has had several poems published

in qarrtsiluni and Canopic Jar and has a poem upcoming in the British

magazine Decanto. Jo is also an editor of ouroboros review, a new poetry and

art journal.