SNAKESKIN
Let me know the taste of the air
on the street where I was born.
Let me know the cool of the sea
down by where my mummy born.
Let me know the deep of the earth
where my daddy born. The fewer images
we have, the more we must make.
The more names we find,
more we must seek.
The less we will know. So many curses.
So little salt at the door.
So far, so far from easy. I want to
whip-crack down the sky over
-turn your heads. I want to make
your animals bray, eyes rolling
with a reflection of something
like a sky. I want to burrow below
the epidermis, like rain
through a forgotten window. I want to be
something like a sky. Something like
lightning. Something indivisible.

“Countries are a grave. But not a well. I keep on climbing” – ‘Wild’, Kandace Walker.
WILD
All you need to build
a house is a closing door.
Was I born in blue mountains
or black mountains?
Men scream insect-like
epithets because they want
to strip me down to bricks,
scatter me on a wind
that tastes like heather.
Only at night
is the sandstone so dark.
At dusk it looks like fire.
Redbone. Black.
As a kid I believed
the hills were named after us.
We don’t have to be right.
We just have to be OK
with never knowing.
A house or a home?
Countries are a grave,
but not a well.
Unpack home
from the suitcase.
Lay all of it at my feet.
The mountains were blue
beaten black. Name me
wild, name me fast.
Through the open door,
I climb and keep climbing.
Kandace Walker is a writer and film-maker. She passed much of her childhood in the Welsh Marches where she has now returned. She won the Guardian 4th Estate Short Story prize and is working on her first book.
Follow Kandace on Twitter @kandacesiobhan
Mary Bailey
Awesome job Kandance
I’m so proud of you