share


Electioneering

Rendering intimacy impossible, deploy lifeboats (mark

yourself safe). Not listening as such, more waiting to

speak, above all mark yourself, it’s so important to be

safe. Carry on, they demand, we’re not reeling / we are

reeling. Is this the place for a fountain reference?

Probably. ‘What first attracted you to your wife, sir?’

‘Her delicacy / her ankles / her hatred of the Tories.’

 

               Alive twice over but that’s a whole life gone too

               you know I’m sorry, he holds his hands up, I’m

               sorry, he backs away: my conscience couldn’t

               keep company with your body I say, your body?

               it just made me think: it’s only a nine month stay.

 

The next time you lay a hand on me, I’ll make a

perfect gleaming dive into the Thames. Aren’t you

glad / to be here? I am.


ABOUT THE CONTRIBUTOR

is a writer and academic based in Glasgow. Her first book, Mother State – a political history of motherhood — is forthcoming from Allen Lane in 2024. She teaches in the English Studies department at Durham University.

READ NEXT

feature

June 2014

Turning the Game Around

Daniel Galera

TR. Rahul Bery

feature

June 2014

Once upon a time there was – no, better: you are a thief who wanders through the cities and...

Art

October 2012

Mitra Tabrizian's Another Country

Matt Mahon

Mitra Tabrizian

Art

October 2012

Mitra Tabrizian’s Another Country (2010), a collection of nine large-scale photographs taken between 2009-2010, present to the viewer an...

poetry

July 2011

Letter of a Madman

Guy de Maupassant

TR. Will Stone

poetry

July 2011

Introduction by the translator In the early hours of 2 January 1892, sensing the approach of insanity, the renowned...

 

Get our newsletter

 

* indicates required