Pretend

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Alex lives and writes in Sussex and Italy. Her pamphlet Again Behold the Stars, was a Cinnamon Press award winner  2023. Her third full collection, A Little Bridge, will be published by Pindrop Press in 2026. www.alexjosephy.net

Kind Stranger

The old girl I am now
comforts the young woman
I was then

a veined hand
placed lightly
on a trembling hand;

the young one
is on her way home
with stories she will never

be able to tell her mum
or even herself, not
in words, only

in flashbacks,
wrong turns in the pit
of her stomach,

inexplicable tears.
Now she’s in the vortex
of a panic attack

on a train, somewhere
in the Midlands. Is this train
out of control? The old girl

listens, considers,
as if that could be true.
No, I think we’re all right.

 

Alex lives in London and Montalcino. Her pamphlet Other Blackbirds was published by Cinnamon Press, 2016 and her collection White Roads by Paekakariki Press, 2018. Her poems have appeared quite widely in magazines and anthologies in the UK and Italy.