Lydia Unsworth

The Echo of the Holler

Knock a house down and it reappears somewhere else. I need a giant hammer and a scoreboard in LED. When we’re all gathered together, I’ll put the money in the dance machine. Those easy arrows. Even if I miss, I can take steady hold of the grab rail. In the bridesmaid dress I stick to the floor of the nightclub. Scraping along in my overgrown petal wilt. Mud on pink on same again please. The bricks of the abattoir are more remorse than mortar. The houses of our childhood are so much smaller when, after the lifetime, we start to recall them. The farms are gone, the echo of the holler―hollowed out, like the bodies that contained us. The skin dies last. Ask the trees. A bath falls through the ceiling, a nail spans a wall’s width to reemerge between a neighbour’s teeth. It has all been an accident, we must come to terms with the terms agreed. I put my foot on the left arrow, the front arrow, the right arrow. The assemblage has unterraced. Tally charts look homely, little ribbons of five.

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Lydia Unsworth has published two collections of poetry: Certain Manoeuvres (KFS Press, 2018) and Nostalgia for Bodies (2018 Erbacce Poetry Prize), and two pamphlets. Her latest pamphlet YIELD (KFS Press) and debut novel Distant Hills (Atlatl Press) have both been recently released. Recent work can be found in SPAM, Bath Magg and Blackbox Manifold. Twitter: @lydiowanie

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