/ɡɪlt/

It’s almost a cloud sagging its belly
on a row of chimneys, barely holding
its water in. It’s almost moss
with seeds stuffed in its cheeks and hair
sprouting from its upper lip. It’s almost
a bus seat, stubbly velour clenching
a dust storm and too much give in its middle.

It’s almost a fragment of chalk loosening
from a cliff face or a plate of ice skidding
across the table of its lake. It’s almost
a scoop neck popping its cleavage or
a phone rubbing a ringtone from its wings or
a door slamming shut in the wind
when it would rather have whispered instead.

It’s almost a pillow shedding its down or
a dog dozing in my empty house or
a pot plant that has withered in the desert
of forgotten. It’s almost impossible
to define but it has moved in for good
and keeps its wine in the fridge, beside mine.

…

Julia Stothard lives in Surrey and works at Royal Holloway University of London. Her poems have appeared in various publications including Ink, Sweat and Tears, South, London Grip and Dempsey & Windle competition anthologies.

The Brief

It started out as a cavernous space
with no light source.
The brief was to make it bright and inviting,
to give it soul.
I took it, bunker and hideout,
and set about making it bright.
The clever bit
was the upturned sieves for lampshades.

The walls were too coarse to paint;
I plastered it
in paper mâché from unread papers,
back when the news
arrived from some distant place
and shot past me.
This is all about what I neglected.

Up next was colour, the season
offered up red leaves for the ceiling,
agarica xanthodermus stain
for light, a dab of moss
and a bottle forest,
whilst two fly-tipped mirrors
spoke endlessly of windows.

Such cluttering would offset
the dense silence
fizzing with anxiety. What
would an explosion sound like?
In the event, I felt it before I heard it
and I chose an intense teal
to focus on when nothing felt solid.

Stone floors are not as glamorous
as they had seemed
last season. I salvaged a rug,
a few off-cuts of carpet
from the loft, and squirrelled them
down to the basement.
Left them loose, for the dust.

Our centre-piece was an island,
half a beer barrel
dragged in at the seventh hour
to serve as a table.
It could fit eight elbows, hold four
heads when the news didn’t get through.
Next week’s challenge
will be based on the theme of Escape.

…

Julia Stothard lives in Surrey and works at Royal Holloway University of London. Her poems have appeared in various publications including Ink, Sweat and Tears, South, London Grip and Dempsey & Windle competition anthologies.