Tuesday poem #627 : Siân Killingsworth : Severed Connection

 

 

I have never met the people I see every day.
On the white shelf behind my head
in the Zoom square grows beautiful green moss.
I could shave it off with even a butter knife. Eat
the moss, dream the greenness.

My brain is in a mood to tell me bad stories.
She’s hot and mean, filling me with dread
of failure, dread of people close to me
and it’s hard to breathe. I can’t listen.

Look at the desk, multiple screens. I’m feeling
my hands, sweat-damp lines, trace of oily lotion,
rings too tight from too much salt,
switch to a razor. Cut through the fog
of brain-lies and let in screeching light.
What I could have been without this.

 

 

 

Siân Killingsworth is the author of Hiraeth (Longship Press, 2024). She has been published in Columbia Poetry Review, Roi Fainéant Press, Stonecoast Review, Glass: A Journal of Poetry (Poets Resist), and elsewhere, including When There Are Nine, a Ruth Bader Ginsburg tribute anthology. Siân is the Social Media Manager for the Rise Up Review. She holds an MFA from The New School.

the Tuesday poem is curated by rob mclennan