I watched your hands find their way to marbled kitchens—a sorcerer of pots and pans—you found it hard to stand so you would sit—sinking in the velvet of our dinner chairs—casting culinary magic—humming Noor Jehan slightly out of tune—I look at our photograph—the one in Aga Khan hospital—you enshrouded in sky blue comfort—butterflies etched on your purse—me at 5 or
laughter is vulnerability. i have given out all of my aching. the way you attach sunflowers to your name. i love you but i won’t tell you. i will let you call me beautiful today and tomorrow. i will hold your hand reaching out to me across the window of a moving bus. i will travel for you. i will
the marrow curbed in my bones has turnedinventor of dreams in the dark vegetation of night.say, every night comes with the nomenclatureof the dead (c)louding our dreams.or the names that will even/t(u)ally snug/ snugbullets in our skull as we lay on the duvet of the dark,unpaved street, eternal bedding.will my mother’s eyes swell with the sun or the sea?will i
Due to restrictions this poem has modified formatting. let’s say there is an eye above the cheekbone of the sky.though, not shaped like a star,but like a mouth that sneaks light into our bodies—sterilises us from the trenches of night.like a creep. like a seed. like hope.or let’s say there is a cracked wallon the navel of the earth. underneath,everything
Most of my childhood fantasies concerned my decimation. Particularly on nights where I could not sleep. Hot and wet nights, heavy as a slobbering dog on your chest. I would imagine being dragged over cold, sandy soil. I would imagine solid, bodiless hands. Sleep became a forest someone else was carrying me in. The skeletal shadows arching across the ceiling
Due to restrictions this poem has modified formatting. at 2:03pmI notice where your watch used to be.Day’s mathematics were perched abovejutting wrist bone, Time’s face restedon the inside of your forearm. Now –“can you pass me my tablets, love” –formulas: swallowed, digested, to fix youpiece by piece by limb by sinew.The hand of a hiding godnearly plucked you from us.The
He got off his merchant ship one day, and decided that out of all the placesthat he’d been,Plymouth was where he wanted to end his travels. Back then, he was made up of a leather jacket and a motorbikeLike my mum, though she had more sense, and, unlike him, was made upof a helmet too. He was made up of
I sleep on your side of the bed. BesideMy grandmother. Pickled grief spreadsIts furry feet in the hollow on my backAnd travels upward over skin and settles In glittering corners of open eyes. I am sorryFor shrinking from your touch, I am sorryFor being repulsed by the years, work andDays of hands arranged upon your body Within folds of thin
I wrote Mutability during the first UK lockdown in 2020, which was a time of great instability and upheaval. It was my way of processing all the disorientation and confusion around me.
Tonight we put the spotlight on Rose Segal, whose poem ‘Inventory of Important Things’ is published in issue 10 of Lucent Dreaming. You can watch and listen to the author read the piece on YouTube. So, what inspired your piece ‘Inventory of Important Things’? Can you tell us a little more about what it’s about? We were inbetween house moves
