Tongues Are Sensitive Tissue
Our quarrel hits
its millennium note
near junction eight
of the M6.
A heart break:
you go to get
large macchiatos.
I rush a text
to Urgent UK.
‘I need a tongue
control key pad.
The sort that look
decorative.’
A customer rep
calls me. She’s
‘Where from exactly?’
I’m ‘St Bees.’
She’s ‘Near the site
of the nuclear plant?
Tongues are highly sensitive tissue.’
I spit out: ‘Get it.’
You twist to check me.
I shrug. She’s ‘Bank card?
Expiry date?’
I hear her hiss ‘Push it, Jack.
The guy is stuck -
His wife is sorted
with a fist-remote.’
I’m ‘Urgent. Urgent.
You’ll see us kicking
an Alfa.’ Switch off.
You’re over the deck
with that in-flight walk
carrying trembling
red card cups.
Page(s) 4-5
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- Lamport Court
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- Paper, The
- Pen Pusher Magazine
- Poetry Cornwall
- Poetry London
- Poetry London (1951)
- Poetry Nation
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- Poetry Salzburg Review
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- Private Tutor
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- Review, The
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- Second Aeon
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- Shearsman
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- Staple
- Strange Faeces
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- Thumbscrew
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