Gold light. I wish the day
could break me like an egg

so I’d ooze the same colour, flatten
on the skillet of Mam Tor.

I’d like the summit path to be a knife
that pared me, skin

like apple skin, saving
just my necessary parts.

Surely the best northwesterly
could whip me into lightness,

sugar me, admit the air
so something of this landscape

could be folded in:
September bracken, lichen, stone.

I don’t know if I’m ready
to be taken

but I’d like to lie prepared:
unnoticed, important as butter,

softening
on the hill’s plate.