‘Weathering’: A poem from Askew by Andy Jackson

A poem from Askew by Andy Jackson (October 2026), his first collection since winning the Prime Minister’s Literary Award for Poetry with Human Looking.

Weathering

you begin to suspect you are already stone
each day a weight that does not shift with rest
with time alone or a fistful of supplements

                    thoughts become rubble, then a puff of dust
                    but the job offers keep coming, requests
                    for support, for words with heft or heat

as you sleep, a pebble drops into your chest
by day, random avalanches in your actual heart
a sedimentary need to be prone, quiescent

          it hurts to mineralise, a constant furnace and settling
          your only life hack, chronic endurance
          your five-year plan, the welcoming of moss

not trending or even relevant but weathering
because stones, you know, don’t lack feelings
they absorb them, are pure compressed existence

                    it’s a gift and a theft, this falling into earth
                    let it all accrete – work, memory, healing
                    life, seismic, is building your resume of loss
                    this slow erosion, your bedrock callin