Buddleia rusting in the sidings
like an old explosion In
each thwack of speeding glass
the same white eye and overbite
as when you were twelve
just your fringe
with its different declensions
and buddleia doing the can-
can How long have you lived
in a railway cutting with a tilted
row of solar panels water towers
one dilated estuary two boys
on foot with a cigarette the air-
dropped gold of a field and
buddleia giving the paper on
marginal gains Buddleia quietly
fracking Buddleia speed-dating
all of you facing so straightly
Buddleia’s microphones mobbed
and bobbing Buddleia jinking
the yarrow sticks nobody loves you
Buddleia shaking its tacky cortège
Look how they travel the other way
grinning and swiftly Buddleia as
guru saying well it’s okay it’s okay
to be both fully grown and quite
uncharismatic Buddleia putting its
foot out O alight take all your longings
with you it’s as good a place as
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Tiffany Atkinson's most recent collection, Lumen (Bloodaxe, 2021) was a Poetry Book Society recommendation and winner of the Medicine Unboxed Creative Prize. In 2022 she received the Cholmondeley Award for Poetry. She is a Professor of Creative Writing at the University of East Anglia, where she is currently working on a book of essays about poetry and embarrassment.