The pair of us in Tindle's wood looking for fairies
and treasure he conjured from twigs, leaves,
saucers of light.

The dirty greens of winter days
powdered with roses, reindeer moss,
finger salt and gold leaf. Breath rendered pink.

In spring, the rafters and corners of barns, lifted so high
I could look down on bird's eggs, blue and green, fragile
as baby's nails.

Birdies, he said, can speak
if you slice their tongues with a sixpence.

I didn't know then that Tindle's wood
was a place where men hanged themselves.

I am trapped in that wood. A man coming.

• Lani O' Hanlon is a dancer and movement therapist. She is the author of Dancing the Rainbow (Mercier Press, 2007). Her fiction has been shortlisted for Over the Edge writer of the year and Hennessy New Irish Writing