Any views expressed within media held on this service are those of the contributors, should not be taken as approved or endorsed by the University, and do not necessarily reflect the views of the University in respect of any particular issue.
The University of Edinburgh's three creative writing prizes, open for 2024 submissions
 
Alice Eaves: Breeding Fires

Alice Eaves: Breeding Fires

Runner-Up for the 2023 Grierson Verse Prize

Alice Eaves is an artist and writer from Blackpool, England. She is currently completing her MSc in Creative Writing at the University of Edinburgh. She has been published or forthcoming in The Literary Platform, The Manchester Review and Origin Stories: An Anthology of Beginnings with Forest Press. Her work explores witchcraft, folklore and our relationship to the natural world.

Connect with Alice
Instagram: @alicebe.art
Breeding Fires

Air so baked it cuts the nostrils, makes the bogies burn like embers. The carnal touch is coarse and wicker. Wicker fingers, wicker penis, wicker bodily juices drop like pine needles to the floor. Remember the pines, how they used to dance in the breeze. Remember the breeze, coils of relief drifting from the tides. Remember the tides, being lulled to sleep under their gentle grumble. When sleep came easy.

Now, children race through the sand with sea bird bones, build castles from their ribcages, puppet dolls from their wings. They learn to communicate with these creepy fledgling figurines. Spinning and slipping down dunes once cloaked by winter frost. Tears stream the cheeks of grandfathers who once laughed at gavage around the water cooler, numb to the capitalist foie gras machine. Pumped their bellies with oil and coal, competing to see who could ram the rubber tubing down first.
Fatty gullets and grease drip chins.

sunk under hot springs

let wisp steam unwind the truth

spun mad by flash fires

Share

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

css.php

Report this page

To report inappropriate content on this page, please use the form below. Upon receiving your report, we will be in touch as per the Take Down Policy of the service.

Please note that personal data collected through this form is used and stored for the purposes of processing this report and communication with you.

If you are unable to report a concern about content via this form please contact the Service Owner.

Please enter an email address you wish to be contacted on. Please describe the unacceptable content in sufficient detail to allow us to locate it, and why you consider it to be unacceptable.
By submitting this report, you accept that it is accurate and that fraudulent or nuisance complaints may result in action by the University.

  Cancel