AnnMarie Eldon

'A brave and original work,' the winner of this year's National Poetry Competition Christopher James on my poem 'Stradivarius sediments' in the Guardian's poetry workshop
Collisions

Stradivarius sediments

my fingers fail their source: I

forage discovery, play Braille

with emerging acuity find

a Nile neck force a

flax field digest: I

flail for durra, falter, dither, pray

in sit-reps discover Bruce peas lobo

livingston stanley speke steppes

along the way: I

silt my hope grown frail sliver to

lint unlimp, purfling regrets a

slow brahms neck to

blue white blue

white fret: I

ignore sustenance

the wheated bores

the eonilitic clastics: I

felucca chopin, a fig melon

pomegranate cause, catgut for

that, a spruced euthenia, maple-hapi

anuket with schubert, a broad flet neilos-elgar

eldering my pegbox to its scroll, how

old this course this brave grabbing

this hailed brief spin of sorts

this eventual pining

deterioration cut

to a delta of, a

tailpiece

endpin

of course-lore

where we all in our own

ruvyironza sudden spiccatoed beginning

die