He basks in morning beam.
The sofa cradles, heart pulsates.
He watches me, charmed eyes.
Work at 6, haven’t slept.
I call in sick and stroke his head.
Demi Lloyd recently gained a Masters degree in Creative Writing at Nottingham Trent University. She is part of a poetry group based in Nottingham called GOBS and is working towards her contribution to their spoken word showcase in March. In her spare time you can find her reading, listening to podcasts or thinking about cats.
I scrutinise my nipples for sap
but I’m not even sure where to look
and listen carefully for a splash
of colour but hear nothing I know.
It’s been months of course
but I think you might not come now
and even with your head between my walking legs
I do not know where you are.
In time my body will prove wiser
and when all that raspberry tea and swirling
does not bring you any quicker
I feel into age-old maps of women.
You will come when it is time.
Rachel Bower is a poet and research fellow at the University of Leeds. Her pamphlet, Moon Milk, will be published with Valley Press in May 2018. She is currently co-editing an anthology with Helen Mort entitled Verse Matters, which is out with Valley Press in November 2017. Her book, Epistolarity and World Literature, 1980-2010 will be published by Palgrave Macmillan in August 2017. Rachel’s poems have been published by Stand Magazine, BBC Radio, Now Then Magazine, Valley Press, Three Drops Press, The Stare’s Nest, Pankhearst and others, and she has had poems shortlisted for several prizes, including The London Magazine Poetry Prize and the Plough Prize 2016. She is also the founder of Verse Matters, a feminist arts collective in Sheffield.
Foxglove Journal 