Winners 2015
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Isla Anderson (Winner)
Woldingham School, Surrey
The Forensics of Salt-Licking
Poem, this. Laboratory. Strip
-lit, search-lit, clean. Fluorescence
shuttering the tremor of it all – the blur
of all these fingertips, adrenalin
as refugee. Circulating, curdling
the blood; receptorless, and never
where I needed it to thrash. Him,
hook. Him twenty-something, liquor
tongued and warm; him hand
past the ladies’ toilets, out
beneath the Kapok, silted feet. Baby
let me show you something,
yeah? Gospel, this. My stumble-drunk
consent, my false sixteen. Body just.
Saying so what if it happens here
like this? Brush my teeth. Forget
his slow mastectomy smile – years on, try
to swab him from the lining of my cheeks,
to magnify. On the glass, it seems
his cells remain like salt-lick in my mouth;
put in focus, all that’s left is gutted lime.
© Isla Anderson, 2015
Project Details
- Date May 14, 2015
- Tags 2015 Cells - Winning Poems
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