Katie Griffiths
The Contra-Indications
These are: that speed is cold
on the Swindon slip-road
and traps itself inside my helmet
as gusts of applause;
that desire surges at a forward slant,
hurries us, two urgent zeds,
with my cheap trainer melting
on your exhaust pipe;
that a fat-cheeked impresario
has conjured tonight,
scripted us into it
and borrowed gas pinpricks for motorway lights;
that motion recalls the time you were ill
and we made love throughout the day of fever
because I, growing porous,
needed to soak up your burning;
that contrasts are complete,
your fingers freeze on handlebars
while mine stay warm
in gloves you have lent me.
Katie Griffiths emigrated to Ottawa, Canada at the age of two with her Northern Irish parents. After finishing high school in Canada, she returned to the UK to attend university. She has worked as a freelance journalist, as a co-ordinator of volunteers looking after the needs of refugees from the war in the former Yugoslavia, and is at present an administrator at a college of further education in Surrey with responsibility for international students. In her free time she sings in a band. She has been a prize-winner in several poetry competitions.
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