bag hits the inside of
my calves
or thighs
Mmmmm green
the window view.
The train is almost bursting too
it rocks from side to side
plant that drop on your sun
glasses
sink through the backs
of your watery knees
white flowers
weeds
metal fences
the zigzag roof a car park
shrouds above its moaning
demarcated pools of
‘something like this’ that
‘but not this’ 1
disentangle in a gentler
heat
soon call the morning
traffic roar
the towel shaking;
damp
white circles
paint knocked off
from where my headboard
smacked its metal ball
against the cold hard wall
hope to fold up neatly both
the nice dreams and the bad to
get some sleep
they all shook red
like treading oil
each sick and paleyet on my last stay
something happened
‘that night was filling this night’ 2
supple
pearly
dry mouthed lips
pull down and over
lowermost ‘find holes
in the failed articulations’ 3
small valleys in their centre
the storm pours out
leaves
dust knocked and skidding
down the inside
of the back door to my friends’ flat
they have this great big slab of
marbled
dark grey soap.
Its soap dish is in half shell brim
or perhaps a terracotta
piece
balanced at the edge
of their sink’s self.
This giant slug of soap
I only brushed it once.
My hand
loose switched
watched it settle
in a modest slither
this one’s a bursting shadow
yet so boring and slow burning
that it’s dark now or it’s nearly very dark
the ground is darker than the sky
I wash the trees
their titan uncurled tops
might hold you in my mouth a while
let the spitting rain
catch up
1 Jess Heritage, (2017) The ‘Once Was’ : On Articulating Loss and Summoning The
Incorporeal, p. 3
2 Eileen Myles, (1994) Chelsea Girls, 2015 ed., London, Harper Collins, p. 230
3 Jess Heritage, (2017) The ‘Once Was’ : On Articulating Loss and Summoning The
Incorporeal, p. 3
Lucie McLaughlin is a London and Belfast-based poet and artist. Her most recent collection ‘Lick’ (2017) is available here.
