After my round, Karen
leaves early. The revision
won’t do itself, she says,
and we know she’s an
all-night crammer, we’ve seen
the textbooks thick as a brick
so we groan but know
needs must. Our tongues, fuzzy
from lurid orange *****,
heads starting to pound
but we all, those left, agree it’s time
for vinegar-blotted batter,
salted sliver, steaming grease
in a puddle of papers. They’re open
till late, I say, the only one
yet to stagger as our one minute
walk begins, laughter lost
to the night. Tom asks why
haven’t we done this before. Beats
me, we just forget about time
don’t we, it’s like there’s not
enough of it. He half-drunkenly nods,
the blinding glow of the chippy
reeling us in, thirsty for money.

WHAT
• Oligarch
• on TV tonight
• minimum wage
• a prime number
• reduce fuel consumption
• might happen in the future

WHERE
• Treasure is
• to watch Euphoria
• hot in April
• next Olympics be held
• in Paris is the Eiffel Tower
• I can find happiness

WHEN
• The clocks change
• we were young
• I grow up
• Internet invented
• it rains it pours
• you wish upon a star

WHY
• Always tired
• feel dizzy
• eye twitching
• hurts to swallow
• I want to work here
• we should hire you

WHO
• My MP
• won the boxing
• Romans
• win Eurovision 2022
• the next James Bond
• Banksy

HOW
• The Queen
• make pancakes
• first human made
• I met your mother
• Earth created
• war end

months
blend together

head steam-swollen
by lack of action

daily ladder
aging technicolor

but enough
to want to be made

from crystals
see-through

to see me
you also

handful of glisten
rare element

visible amid
the cool stream

Then I am eleven
playing Asher,
a cricket-ball-stung
hand, swimming pool
trepidation when
everybody else bounds in
with shouts that rocket
off from the tiles.

Then I am sixteen
and our deputy head,
on the brink of expelling
tears, leaves when we do,
an exercise book graffitied
with wish-you-wells,
faded shirt acrostic
in blue marker.

Then I am eighteen
complimenting a stranger
on their coat (now they
are a poet), stitches
for buses in the place
they demolished,
first attempt at a villanelle
in a room of twenty.

Then I am twenty-six
and a friend starts
to share a life
with a signature, online
ultrasounds, letters from
America, a manuscript,
library-printed, spiral-bound
posted north for a score.

Then I am twenty-nine,
coffee in hand,
reeling off names that haven’t
lined my throat for a decade,
reduced to pixels on a screen,
you doing the same,
wondering where they went,
where we are going.

Even though I have next-to-no interest
in borderline celebrities quickstepping
for applause, this is how your/our Saturday
nights trickle by. For others it may be
a back massage, a meal out with jazz music
slinking its way across to our table, but no,
for you/us, television, flatscreen. It’s easier, you say,
to order in, and though it’s not every Saturday
this time I made the call and I tipped
the guy ten percent, said thanks very much,
and that’s how now I’m sitting next
to you on our second-hand IKEA sofa
eating egg fried rice, chewy Kung Po prawns
in a slippery orange sauce, cashew nuts
and chicken from the steaming foil tub,
mouth a muddle of flavours as you
judge a dancer’s dress and give a score
out of ten as even I, surprisingly so,
become entranced by proceedings,
a smile appearing on your face.

morning donation
like blobs of memory

remnants of night’s mischief
sets green ablaze

with transparent poetry
transient grammar

will try to be good
hold your hand in thunderstorms
lightning in your name

---

will try to be good
ask the trees to yawn their limbs
reside in shadow

---

will try to be good
sync hearts to rhythm of night
drizzled desire

---

will try to be good
set our ellipsis alight
tomorrow’s burning

---

will try to be good
repeat as though private prayer
breathe holy sunrise