3 poems by Lucy Holt

Timperley

Leisure centres

the stench of them like cabbage pie in Moscow

I have loved men from the coast who cannot swim

I am always seeking a challenge

you’ve knocked me sideways:

there are hometowns and then there’s this

when they talk of the palimpsest of place

I don’t think they mean Timperley

What good is a muesli woman

or a woman made of gorse?

One day you’ll wake up and realise

I was right about everything

there is no such thing as girlfriend material

I only made you up

in Go Outdoors

Have a nice weekend, I think you’re interesting

My favourite topic is our mutual friends

of which we have none

I have never been this funny

you are nice to people in shops

in the gallery there is

hot pink tape on our shoes

I feel like a god

an art gallery god

I am face blind apart from

you sometimes

and at night you roll me

across the wet grass

to a gentle stop

outside my mother’s porch

___________

Lucy Holt is a writer who lives in Manchester. her non-fiction and poetry has appeared in The Observer, 3:AM Magazine and Ache Magazine. In 2020 she was named a New Poet by The Poetry Business.