Catherine Fisher lives in Newport, Wales, with two cats. She has published three main collections of poetry, all with Seren, and many novels for children. She worked in teaching and archaeology before becoming a full-time writer; she is also an experienced broadcaster and adjudicator. She has recently taught Writing for Children at the University of Glamorgan. Myth, legend and spiritual concerns play an important part in both her novels and poems.

Devil's Toenails

Curl as if clutching the windowsill,
grey, heavy, picked up at the Knap.
Sometimes I like to finger them and feel
tiny tortoise patterns, shell-layers overlap,
creases gone solid. Aeons in the deep
millennia by millennia petrified
into a rockhard desperation, gripping
tight, dredging the drag of the tide
for something to feed on.
Unsurprising, the tales
making them cast offs of some evil.
Because when the time comes, when the devil
gathers his parings up, or Loki sails
back on the ship of dead men's fingernails
we'll all hold on as grimly for survival.