Three short recent poems, concerning light, heat and the potential perils of open windows. All first seen on Twitter as posts for Blackbough Poetry’s @toptweettuesday.

Mosquito dreams

All colour bled out,
all shape vague, 
edges softened, 
I awake into the soup 
warm, half-dark,
dragged by noises I recall
I should find fearful –
a high-pitched droning whine, 
which for the little fly behind it, 
may well be a love song, 
but for me trips a terror 
of tiny bites, the signal to flap
hands, panic, an awkward reminder, 
that in the end, I am not nearly big enough 
to cherish every other creature of this earth.

Midsummer ghost

Heat lurks at open window,
a thermal Catherine Earnshaw,
come to wag an index finger,
raise a guilt-sweat 
over climate breakdown – 
and although I’d love to 
absolve myself, here 
amongst the wrinkled 
landscape of dead day, 
that is duvet, half kicked 
across the bed,
I’m chilled inside 
and can imagine
only unquiet 
slumbers.

Inked in 

Slant of early light 
tattoos foliage, 
stark against 
the morning wall, 
chiaroscuro reflection 
of a time defined 
by shadow, 
eerie, apparently 
inexorable, until 
the angle 
of the sun shifts,
begins to change.