Nisha Bhakoo

village farm

At the farm, haloes around animal heads.
The jester dances on the tractor.
The crone watches on,
spooning milk curds between thin lips. 
The maiden gives her mother side eye
as she prepares her meals. 
At the farm, air absorbs the muddy grief. 
Grief seeps into the potatoes,
shoes, mouths and bellies.

shed

Grass stains on jeans and jackets.
They sit for hours, clams of the land.
Girling into meatless fists.
Marbles of ideas swallowed by school and sleep. 
Family sandstorms, disorienting the soundest minds.
At sixteen, the snakes will shed their skin.
They will strike. The women will strike.

Nisha Bhakoo has three poetry collections published: You found a beating heart (The Onslaught Press, 2016), Black & White Dream (Broken Sleep Books, 2018) and Spectral Forest (The Onslaught Press, 2020). She edited Contemporary Gothic Verse for The Emma Press in 2019. She has taught at Potsdam University, Humboldt University, Dundee University and at the Poetry School.

Nisha wrote the following about her poems:

My home in Angus, Scotland, overlooks the village farm, and I often find myself gazing over at the farm from my writing table, letting my imagination run wild. These poems are inspired by my interests in folk horror, miniature poems, and the contemporary gothic.