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Poetry

Seasonal

Meryl Pugh

This poem is part of the SPOONFEED takeover of New Writing, curated by Kat Payne Ware and Sean Wai Keung. You can read the issue in full at spoonfeedmag.com/spoonfeed-x-new-writing

 

Smell of fermenting turnips in the carriage,

of cumin on the escalator. To have

an odour that particular. What’s mine?

It isn’t air, so done with this city,

clutching the Ventolin, down Baylis Road –

muggy, filthy choke – to sag before

the chiller cabinets striking cold

into my soaked t shirt, too much to choose from.

 

Cold sheets. Was it the beer? Sweat – mine, sharp, sour –

a chronicle-artifact: Face flaming, laughing,

voice high in the throat, hands all over him,

astounding fact of the body. The pub,

the night, the whole city – 24-

hour gym, open car window – perspires,

respires our animal life. And the dear one,

snoring beside me, smelling of baked beans.

 

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