My new poem, Sheffield to Aleppo, November 2016, was recently published on Wildcat Dispatches: for Dangerous Times.
You can read the poem, along with an important piece on Syria by Mark Boothroyd and Wildcat’s Statement on Aleppo on the Wildcat Dispatches website.
This is the poem in full:
Sheffield to Aleppo, November 2016
It’s only a firework I whisper
thumb tucked into her palm
but her eyes reflect a spark
that tells me that somewhere
she knows this isn’t quite true –
that a shot can echo when stars skim seas
that shrapnel can whistle through waves
screeching fear in bruising skies
and I stroke floss hair and sweet bun cheeks
damp from steam, breathing milk
and I ache for it only to be fireworks
for thumbs in the dark to be enough
to stop glazed buns cracking in the dust
for shells that spill only golden fish
for grazes that heal with the fizz
of a rocket and I kneel
in the night and feel her sleep.
Rachel Bower 