Wasp Poem
After CAConrad
oil tankers
little matchboxes
against the sealine
we watched them
shuttle straightforward
sleeping in violet
to violence
to planetary death,
cool, as in cold,
under influence
of seasons of turnings
or capacious planes of water
moon pulling liquid slates
through the body’s holed doors
nooks crannies
unexplored axels and shafts
eating from the inside out
like the enzymes in figs
breaking down wasps
girls pollinate, die alone,
don’t worry
the crunchy parts are seeds
not wasp limbs
off we go again
doodling a line
between the natural
the non-natural
as if we care
about dead wasps
we’d eat them off the floor
I check the news wake up
A Thousand Hands
after Audre Lorde
for opening the mail in the mornings in the always doorway
where the light is water where the water threatens
to turn stale for when my heart breaks
catastrophically on a daily basis
like a grey duck egg a grey self-repairing duck egg
and I ask you have you seen the security
tags on the baby food formula
I lied I didn’t ask you
it felt round pointless
a dream of better for the children
who want to respect their elders but see fish rot red in the lakes
listen to soundbanks of dead once- life on the internet
for my loves who will not say thank you
to an ageless apathy for the we that just won’t stop
for the we’s thousand hands and all their hurting
all their broken careful holding
____________
Marina Scott grew up in Falmouth. They hold an MA in Creative & Life Writing from
Goldsmiths and co-run SE London poetry community, Resonance, hosting monthly open
mics and poetry workshops via the Feminist Library. Their debut pamphlet, ‘Lips Blue,
Drying Up’, is forthcoming from Death of Workers Press.
These poems were chosen by guest editor Tom Branfoot.
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