AZRAEL
at the age you are now your father’s body
had built a nest for an angel
you key stage two couldn’t place why
he coughed wingbeats cried shameless
the year wisemen saw the stowaway
photobomber in a radio wave
today tapping forty your neck convexes
you bookmark testaments
nothing makes sense like a toddler walking around
with your face hurling a sippy cup at the wall
this summer we’re home braising our skirting boards
and the bees are brave
buzzing thickets comfort crushed shale into shade
and you run to remember not all angels are hereditary
in one version god drops a leaf
and seven billion eyes read your name
forty days later a test card
this summer we cling to our tvs like gastropods on a rock
the land before time washes up on netflix
little foot’s mum is dead like simba’s dad is dead like
bambi’s mum is dead like bastian’s mum is dead
if this is how we level up to protagonist
you’d rather swim in the shadow of a demiurge
you swing your daughter dizzy in the garden
to remember not all childhoods are hereditary
at the age you first met memory
she spies her shadow takes it everywhere
but watches mama dinosaur die dry eyed
while you break on the black friday couch
four thousand wings trying you on for size
wonder why your kid’s hypothetical loss stings
sharper than your lived one
you ask your mother
she says when the angel came she couldn’t look
directly at your grief a wooden doll inside hers
you say kids are resilient you were ok she says
you weren’t though were you
T MINUS ZERO
it won’t matter if the water
is hot or cold
it won’t matter about the plastic
tub for the placenta
or which pyjamas
when you lie on a floor
next to the lift
trolleys
splash rocky down corridors
each
contraction a red
sun setting over and
in you
rise out of water
his eyes catching you
falling into the room
when she swells
into the water
a tree
splitting to give way
to lightning
her head like god
cracking
a rock a planet a red sun
rising blood
won’t matter
frog slither neck
and shoulders
and he in the sun all kneeling
your hands full of someone
slick minute
god
when she comes
you won’t remember if she cried
because
someone is here
look
look at the day
arriving
ABOUT THE CONTRIBUTOR
AMY ACRE
is a poet, editor and freelance writer from London. She’s the author of And They Are Covered in Gold Light (Bad Betty Press, 2019) and Where We’re Going, We Don’t Need Roads (flipped eye, 2015), each chosen as a Poetry Book Society Pamphlet Choice. She won the 2019 Verve Poetry Prize. She’s written for BBC Radio 4, and featured on The Last Dinosaur track, ‘In The Belly of a Whale’. She runs indie publisher, Bad Betty Press.
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