Aurora (Year 12) won second place in the prestigious Oxford Tower Poetry competition, for her poem "the god-tree". Lemn Sissay, who was judging the competition, said that Aurora was "born a poet"!

the god-tree
hey, god-tree,
curl your roots about my body//
god-tree, girl-tree,
i -- your honey-suckled babe -- am here;
here with the deer-pelt and the under-growth.
see me down at your feet,
god-tree,
you with your peeling skin,
your thighs like tree-trunks,
your stomach loose and pregnant.
swollen god-tree, a bole as two:
no insect too small to crawl
between your skin-flakes and burrow a home.
give of me the fruit and i will eat
in bloody ecstasy, mother and daughter,
hag and babe.
fear not the lathe, god-tree//
your every limb a gift for my knife;
my fleeting body the feed for your trough.
dig into me, knife and fork and xylem,
pierce my aching bones and suck the marrow —
you bled, i bleed;
i suckled, you suckle.
god-tree, mother/daughter,
tangled willow-whip hair & naked form,
bare feet and begging hearts,
unstunted and singing,
roots splayed wide
& open.