1 poem
Dream Dive
She floats on a surface high above
a surface in which she does not see
herself – body etherized, eyes staring
down at the lake, level as mercury
and as silver. She looks beyond herself
to a loop of ripple, a sliver
of fish in the thicker liquid below,
the pull of it like a stone
tied around her ankles. She dives
neither headfirst nor feet first
but folds, falling as far and as hard
as rain, as if she was aiming
for a weak spot in water
thin enough for an Osprey to pierce.
—
She breaks through and instantly shatters
the dream of the fish. The lake
catches fire – it glitters and blooms.
Her talons already puncture its side.
Her wings (which are now theirs)
emerge in an arc of spray.
They swim further down as they fly;
they fly holding on as they swim,
then begin to conduct the air
which gathers itself below them. They lift
out of sleep, gasping, punctured
and risen, the open mouth expressing
everything – the horror of piloting
this new contraption, this nightmare.
Jack Thacker’s poetry has appeared in numerous print and online magazines, including PN Review, Stand, Blackbox Manifold, The Clearing and Caught by the River, as well as on BBC Radio 4. In 2016, he won the Charles Causley International Poetry Competition. His debut pamphlet-length collection is Handling (Two Rivers Press, 2018). He lives in Sheffield.