My heart the magpie by Finlay Worrallo

Pied and light-footed, known by its

two shades. White among corvids, 

dark among doves. Nesting 

in a ribcage of mud and twigs. 

Never resting long, always 

seeking gold and silver, 

ready to fill its beak 

with ring and bead. 

Locked by child’s

chantment into a song of

sorrow 

and joy, and girl 

and boy. 

Wise to the mirror’s snare 

and forgery. Content to nod 

to its double and fly off 

alone, secrets still untold.

Finlay Worrallo is a bisexual cross-arts writer studying for a Creative Writing MA at Newcastle University. His work is published in VIBE, Queerlings, 14, Impossible Archetype, Pennine Platform, Consilience, the Braag's speculative fiction chapbook Unfurl: Portrait of Another World, and the Emma Press' anthology Dragons of the Prime: Poems about Dinosaurs.