
'Incantation' & 'Seer': Two Poems by Claire Loader

INCANTATION
Light up, light up
the night sky of my desire
write my heart on your bonfire
I’m ready for you
Like the Cathars at Carcassonne
witches on trial
the blaze doesn’t scare me
come let it inside
On this midwinter night
strewn on the pyre
come crowd and come smell
my flesh now on fire
SEER
She woke
to memories of fire
smoke lingering like wisps
of a dream
Bracken damp
she floated, on the waves
of those before her
drowned, in the flush
of their bones
Tasted the flesh
of those once damned
knows, we too
are for the flame
Claire Loader was born in New Zealand and spent several years in China before moving to County Galway, Ireland. Her dark fiction and photography has appeared in various publications, including The Sirens Call, The Ginger Collect, Massacre Magazine and Dark Moon Digest. Find Claire on Twitter: @msloader
Photograph by Claire Loader, taken at the Ross Errilly Abbey.