Extract: A poem from Jacob Polley's T.S. Eliot Prize-winning collection Jackself

Jackself’s Quality

can’t be bought

or stolen                    Mudder hasn’t bottled it

Mugginshere hasn’t brought it home

in his briefcase

the farmer hasn’t clipped its weighty foam

from his blackest sheep

the hawk-man, with a rag of meat

in his leather glove, can’t bring it

stooping from the sky              Thomascat

hasn’t fetched it from the farmyard

to lay still warm at Jackself’s feet

the dark continent

Jackself peels from the flank

of a Friesian cow, ties to his ankles

and drags across the flatland

at midday, doesn’t prove

his substance               the night

is made of what he needs

he moonwalks in daylight,

afraid like snow he’ll wane or drift

before he can hold

the road out front, the fields behind

and the earth in the churchyard

so Jackself crawls to the coal-shed

and eats