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*Sonia, 14
Between a rock and a heartless place they will give me a terrible death. Crushed between eon-cast strata – promised at ten to a Taleban impaled on the hook of my brothers’ honour gagged by gallstone judiciary. A mother’s sphere is flat-bread small her orbit cramped – four cracking walls arms slack against fists and chronic kicks that rend muscle, shatter bone religiously. At fourteen a chance - grey-blue burqa shadow sudden, in unpaired shoes, I walked. Fossil. Safe house hobbled rank with Kabul dread between a rock and a heartless place they will give me a terrible death. * name changed. The italicized words belong to the girl who inspired this poem. |
Memory Stick (A Trick of the Tongue)
hush-syncopated sandal slap on sun-worn steps: a baguette-bite away teeth tear still-warm crust, crumble burnt ochre over summer arms smiling fresh dough, soft jolt to sixty faultless foot-skips down breezy sandstone erratic jazz return arms nestling French scented sticks knowing breakfast at Tiffany’s is trounced: your dozed skin bed-fresh lustring |
Becky KilsbyBecky Kilsby lives with her family in Dubai, grew up in the UK and is hungry – for words, for images, for places and people.
Currently researching readers’ responses to fiction for a PhD in Applied Linguistics and teaching on the Media programme at Middlesex University, Dubai, writing poetry is constantly jostling for space. It wins every time. |
