Two Poems by John Clegg
Sauna Lie still. This is the cusp of comfortable. One thin towel can’t muffle the hot slats and a mist is pressing on you like cement. You’ve become the confluence of two rivers, one of liquid salt and one of steam, which pour over your bones and work them edgeless – and the tiered box is so crisp and angular, it carves up even light like church windows. You lie perfectly still. You are what flows. Dough A silent accordion she cools her hands to play in the kitchen corner. I try and it seems to writhe against my grip. In her firm press it doesn’t struggle, it flows through the shapes she offers it: she leads but makes the dough an equal partner. Hard stem of the palm is what she works with. Sometimes you can see a medic working to restore a heartbeat: bread needs breath, unspooling yeast needs air. I need that strength of touch, that medium which yields as it strains to rise. So I kiss her hands. John Clegg was born in 1986 and is studying for a PhD at Durham University on the Eastern ...