ALT Nine photo grid. Poetry Picnic promo image. Away with the birds book. What to look for in summer book. Cannock Chase Heritage Trail waymarker. Dog rose. Firethorn blossom. Firethorn berries. View over Cannock Chase. Cherry holding The Taste of Rain.

ALT September surrounded by a fairy lights and autumn leaves garland.

ALT September. The leaves are all still spring green, dripping honey onto the forest floor. The only sound - your breath in the trees. The twilight scent warms me like the hug I haven't felt for twenty years. Your hair used to fly in curls of candied bramble in the low sun of September, my fox fur bracken blood lit by our copper twists of DNA. Doe and fawn graze by the fractured spine of an oak. Did you creep past them too, barely breathing - as diamonds of white sun quenched your tired skin? And how often did you find yourself, cold-lipped and wandering among golden streamers of birch, and amanita, clustered like garnets? Rust-stained robins warble away the last drops of summer, the moon cracks a tobacco-stained grin. Dusk leaves my palms cold where your hand used to be, cold as answers I will never have. Cherry Doyle, September.