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FROM OUR ARCHIVE: THREE POEMS

MAY

 

you slid into my life as though
a witch’s smock — a sun poem.

 

fat bee on a bright brick wall
atrocious swan of love

 

we roll apart
our grave-beds loose and hot

 

*

 

i have so many bouquets
it’s like somebitch died —

 

using love
as a bulwark
against modernity’s axiomatic selfishness
which i realise may after all be my great theme like
fuck

 

 

TINY VIOLETFLAVOURED

 

here i am of sunday
and earth
rotoxid — fortunate
for all i am not very giving of myself

 

the mad winds in trees behind the houses and
indulgent baby

 

bad
but better than Lars von Trier

 

like depression
all your friends have had me

 

affirmation: even the slug (who is most profane)
trails a platinum appliqué
of artistic tragedy

 

 

MY MARRIAGE THROAT

 

and what really mattered
were the cancers we metastasised along the way —

 

a shame of spotted blood on the guest-pillow.
the other afternoon i almost whistled after the hatchet-faced man on his red bicycle
like
pursue me!

 

desire very icicles
cracking fantastically from a wingmirror —

 

sorrow, o no
too many times left dry.

 

my marriage throat —
behind the suburb’s water-coloured fascia
a window filled with orchids in the fluted bonnets
of benighted spiritualists

 

what would it mean to shrink myself? pirate mini golf
and evenings spent choked to supernatancy
by well-beloved hand.

 

 

First published in THE WHITE REVIEW No. 23.


ABOUT THE CONTRIBUTOR

is a poet and novelist from London. She is the author of two full-length poetry collections: HUMBERT SUMMER (Eyewear, 2015) and FONDUE (Offord Road Books, 2018), which was awarded the Ledbury Forte Prize for Best Second Collection. Her debut novel THE MANNINGTREE WITCHES was published in the UK by Granta in the spring of 2021, and is forthcoming from Catapult in the US.

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