Tiffany Atkinson

---

---

Running poem

Closest to the beat of all of it
       is running 
even the same laps doggedly
that thirty years of it have laid 
a jewel inside of tiny green directions. 
Emerald to press against in lifts
       in meetings 
when the body sinks into the silt of itself
and work could be a wrong turn in the history of
       movement.  Runs
are hard on the mind like bitter when the mind is.  
Runs are joyous when the flying hormone says so.
       Up ahead go
all the mid-life women that I love from Boadicea 
to Anne Carson in a fleet of silver trees.  Not 
       one of us amazed
by the sorrow a body can carry from a racing start 
nor by what light shakes out.  Lately 
I got older and my dog too
       fine boy 
bumping my heel like a steaming gold thurible.
It is cold and Nell says
       when you die 
what is the spike of clear joy you will pass through.  
Breaking over and over 
       this my green field this my slackly happy nag.

---

---

---

---

TIFFANY ATKINSON’s most recent collection, Lumen (Bloodaxe 2021) was a Poetry Book Society Recommendation. She lives in Norwich where she teaches at the University of East Anglia, and runs the MA Creative Writing (Poetry).