Poetry
Houses
They interviewed a guy on Anglia, the end wall
of his terrace blown clean off like a doll's house
and all the rooms visible
Gym equipment, clothes rails, computer desk, twin divans.
He wasn’t rich. Tumble dryer they said.
That’s how my head feels -
like there’s a hole instead of a staircase in the bedroom floor
like you can peer down through the sitting room ceiling
by hanging over the bed, giddy and vertiginous
or like you might light up all the water in the pipes with potassium
screaming at dog-whistle pitch that you want to go home.
Some of them – some of us – kill our babies.
We drive cars into walls or walk off bridges.
I want to kiss those women on their foreheads and say
you’re not bad you’re not bad I see you and you’re not a bad person
and fasten all the doors on their broken doll’s houses.