2 poems by Imogen Wade

Husbandry

He changed 

after he lost me 

on the beach in France,

when nothing lit his way.

He imagined me 

carried off

by the purple waves.

But I was in a cave, 

trying to find a bat, 

a little drunk.

When he entered,

calling my name,

I jumped from the ledge

like a spider

on iridescent thread.

He seized my arms and it hurt—

after fifteen years,

my sole taste of his rage.

He was never ordinary again.

Like a shepherd 

before an angel, 

sometimes I shield myself 

from his light.

But when I'm alone,

missing our bed in some

corporate hotel,

my mind doesn't linger on 

his brightness—

he's forty again,

looming over me in the cave,

and his face is a mess

of stitched-together shadow.

Pigsty

after Selima Hill

I am in love, in luck, in dire straits.

Lying by myself at four in the afternoon,

not thinking about the past. Pinecones

on the sill, my head dreamless, no

wanting left.

You come home. You clean my insides.

You take my bones. My voice is nothing

when I stay stop, so I roll over like a pig

being cooked. I’m not empty yet, so keep

killing me.

If love is a house to enter, bailiffs are due.

Front porch, lights out, you on the step

in your beige leather shoes. A fixer-upper

with an AWOL tenant. Farm attached,

pigsty included.

Piggy watches the man; she wonders if

love means standing outside, looking in,

getting the least of someone. She hopes

he’ll visit the pigsty next, and saves a spot

just for him.

______________

Imogen Wade is a writer and mental health practitioner, based in Hampshire. She won the National Poetry Competition in 2023, and has also won the Troubadour International Poetry Prize and Ware Poetry Prize. She has been commended in the Foyle Young Poets of the Year Award, the New Poets Prize, The Moth Poetry Prize, and the Montreal International Poetry Competition. Her debut collection Girl, Swooning was published in 2026 by Corsair.