Winners 2008 : Runner-Up

Charlotte Geater
Northgate High School, Ipswich, Suffolk

We Beasts

i

My hands had never skimmed your neck.
I hadn’t felt the skin
of your lips. I did not know if you had dimples
but I had seen your eyes
and although I had not seen it often
I knew your tongue.

When you asked me, I hesitated.
I said yes.

You closed your eyes and spent hours
in the chair. I had not used razors before
and did not know that with one wrong stroke
I could cut you open. Forgive me,
I wanted my mouth to be
the first to sear that line.

ii

There are too many storms in your body.
Your hands are pale lightning
bolts; they strike my hair
and dash from me
to the street lamp, Orion’s belt,
the highest part of my house.
If I could catch your cough
in my hands, I would keep it
trapped in the cage of my fingers
and let you breathe.

Rain causes nothing to change
inside your lungs. I hear the thunder
as you whoop and clap in the dark.

Other Winners 2008…

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