SEVEN THINGS I REMEMBER ABOUT WHAT I LOST ON THE WAY HOME
OR
PEOPLE IN CARS, GOING
I remember about blame (+1) and
crab apples (+1) the dress (+1) you wore
to make the statement but not (-1) the statement itself.
Without conclusion I am left walking around the car park with a man
named Michael (+1) an artist whose last name I . . . (-1)
and I remember (+1) we photographed florescent cuffs
perplexed the woman who came down the stairs to sell us the
florescent cuffs
but did not buy them to cover our wrists even though
like moons wrists do not make their own light
whatever you do with them.
I remember (+1) waiting for the . . . (-1)
and I think you were a teacher of politics who kindly
reassured me that there was no chanting
no need to panic meanwhile the
quiet white noise I found the room go into alone.
I remember the two A4 sheets badly folded together (+1)
pocketgone (-1) now rubbish
in some other footwell.
Still the residents of the crescent reach for their telephones.
I remember hearing the chanting (+1) that wasn’t there (-1)
I remember (+1) asking an ignorant question and being answered with kindness
I remember (+1) my excitement when realising
the seven confessions of others had begun (+1) to be read aloud and
preparing a lie (-1) to tell if asked
to protect the true statement I had made
(I was not asked).
I remember (+1) adding words and taking them away to make seven (7)
which itself is only five (5) letters long somehow ruining everything.
I remember (+1) I think (≠)
low green freedom.
“BIRDS” OR HOW TO BE HAPPY
She liked “birds” the concept very much, kept books, paintings, etc.
looked at them when getting up or in from work, when passing the
hall for any reason.
The problem was their corporeal selves: each wing line a bone, their
heads full of thimble skull, their mouths almost bone and their warm
hot fast middles the worst.
One day she went to a garden centre, bought a bird bath and placed it
sixty miles from her back door because that is how to be happy.
Fee Griffin received her MA in Creative Writing from the University of Lincoln and serves as a poetry editor for The Lincoln Review. She has recent work published in Poetry London and the latest anthology from Dunlin Press, Port. She works as a cleaner and for the SO Festival.