Dirt
Even though we’ve lived here for a month
I’d still think twice about playing hide and seek
in our new flat, or murder in the dark in case
I came across some dirt we’d missed
with our soda crystal mops
and disinfectant wands
which heralded our arrival,
or fear my skin would alight upon
a piece of carpet
we’d not covered yet with rugs
to hide the marks of others.
All of this disturbs my sense of clean self,
my shiny heart, my safe and quiet mind -
the odours that come and go
about the flat like ghosts,
the sour damp air in the bathroom,
and the smell
arriving in the kitchen late at night
that says dogs have stayed here.
And worst of all, the photo that we found,
pulling out of the gas fire,
of a woman bruised and beaten,
her eyes staring at me from the sofa-
the debris of a grave event
in someone else’s life
in our sitting room.
I worry about these things although
we have been thorough
in cleaning away the evidence of others
and have by now begun to smother
what is left of other people’s dirt
with our own,
recording our passing through
for the next ones to discover.
magazine list
- Features
- zines
- 10th Muse
- 14
- Acumen
- Agenda
- Ambit
- Angel Exhaust
- ARTEMISpoetry
- Atlas
- Blithe Spirit
- Borderlines
- Brando's hat
- Brittle Star
- Candelabrum
- Cannon's Mouth, The
- Chroma
- Coffee House, The
- Dream Catcher
- Equinox
- Erbacce
- Fabric
- Fire
- Floating Bear, The
- French Literary Review, The
- Frogmore Papers, The
- Global Tapestry
- Grosseteste Review
- Homeless Diamonds
- Interpreter's House, The
- Iota
- Journal, The
- Lamport Court
- London Magazine, The
- Magma
- Matchbox
- Matter
- Modern Poetry in Translation
- Monkey Kettle
- Moodswing
- Neon Highway
- New Welsh Review
- North, The
- Oasis
- Obsessed with pipework
- Orbis
- Oxford Poetry
- Painted, spoken
- Paper, The
- Pen Pusher Magazine
- Poetry Cornwall
- Poetry London
- Poetry London (1951)
- Poetry Nation
- Poetry Review, The
- Poetry Salzburg Review
- Poetry Scotland
- Poetry Wales
- Private Tutor
- Purple Patch
- Quarto
- Rain Dog
- Reach Poetry
- Review, The
- Rialto, The
- Second Aeon
- Seventh Quarry, The
- Shearsman
- Smiths Knoll
- Smoke
- South
- Staple
- Strange Faeces
- Tabla Book of New Verse, The
- Thumbscrew
- Tolling Elves
- Ugly Tree, The
- Weyfarers
- Wolf, The
- Yellow Crane, The