If we could speak like Wolves by Kim Moore

if I could wait for weeks for the slightest change
in you, then each day hurt you in a dozen
different ways, bite heart-shaped chunks
of flesh from your thighs to test if you flinch
or if you could be trusted to endure,
if I could rub my scent along your shins to make
you mine, if a mistake could be followed
by instant retribution and end with you
rolling over to expose the stubble and grace
of your throat, if it could be forgotten

the moment the wind changed, if my eyes
could sharpen to yellow, if we journeyed
each night for miles, taking it in turns
to lead, if we could know by smell
what we are born to, if before we met

we sent our lonely howls across the estuary
where in the fading light wader birds stiffen
and take to the air, then we could agree
a role for each of us, more complicated
than alpha, more simple than marriage.

Copyright Kim Moore 2012
'If We Could Speak Like Wolves', published by Smith/Doorstop Books
Available as a Paper book or in E-format
Reproduced with Permission 
Editor Kathleen Jones

It's National Poetry Day this week in the UK, so I've chosen a young British poet with a very bright future. It’s difficult to describe the way that Kim Moore writes - it’s lyrical, honest, sometimes surreal, often funny, but always managing to find the line through to something more profound. Some critics have said that Kim Moore is ‘modernizing the lyric tradition’.

This is the title poem of a prize-winning pamphlet, winner of the Poetry Business prize, judged by Carol Anne Duffy, which was published last year and has already been re-printed. 'If We Could Speak Like Wolves' was also one of The Independent newspaper's 'books of the year' in 2012.  Kim Moore has won an impressive list of awards - including the Poetry Society's Geoffrey Dearmer Prize and is widely regarded as 'One to Watch'!

I like Kim's poetry for its musicality.  She's a musician and music teacher and I think this has a real influence on the way she uses language.  This poem, for instance, has a momentum that starts with the title and carries it urgently through to the very last line. It's a journey as well as an analysis of the complexity of relationships.  It also has an important message - that we should be more instinctive, less intellectual, more aware of our 'animal' natures and less afraid of them.  If only .....

This week's editor Kathleen Jones is an English poet and biographer living part of the time in Italy.  She blogs over at  'A Writer's Life'  Her most recent collection of poetry is 'Not Saying Goodbye at Gate 21', which won the 2011 Straid Award. 

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