share


From: Acheron

 

 

                                            we pass through a series of moral systems –
                            the accumulations of good acts, the weighing
of bad, we note cicatrices of consequence

 

for as many as twenty generations after,
                            we count the number of words spoken and
                                            how many were wrong. The function of moral

 

                                            systems differ according to era: historical
                            relativism rewrites the language of accounting.
Some ghosts may choose to visit facsimiles

 

of dead ancestors and punish them eternally,
                            leaving them raped and blood-bound, but
                                            we must remember this is an unmoderated

 

                                            activity: there are over five billion cases
                            pending appeal; accounting might have
the raw data but they lack the resources

 

to form conclusions. I have been
                            counted, meted; upside down I do not
                                          move the water, the water moves me.

ABOUT THE CONTRIBUTOR

won a Northern Writers Award New Poets Prize in 2019. She won 2nd place in the 2020 Walter Swan Poetry Competition (18-25 category) and 2nd place in the 2020 Hive young writers competition (20-30 category). She has an MA in Poetry and Poetics from the University of York and lives in Leeds.


READ NEXT

fiction

January 2014

Leg over Leg

Ahmad Fāris al-Shidyāq

TR. Humphrey Davies

fiction

January 2014

First published in 1855, Leg over Leg recounts the life, from birth to middle age, of ‘the Fāriyāq,’ alter ego of...

poetry

February 2014

Two Poems from A Finger in the Fishes Mouth

Derek Jarman

poetry

February 2014

To mark the 20th anniversary of Derek Jarman’s death, Test Centre has produced a facsimile edition of his sole,...

feature

May 2015

In the Light of Ras Tafari

Anna Della Subin

feature

May 2015

‘A STRANGE NEW FISH EMITS A BLINDING GREEN LIGHT’, the article in National Geographic announced. Off the coast of...

 

Get our newsletter

 

* indicates required