Trivial
I follow him round his house,
up two flights of stairs, into the bathroom –
I am desperate. It starts with me explaining
that one in three who suffer a heart event
die, asking if he likes Monty Python and why,
if he knew when Beyoncé had her twins
she was keeping it hush-hush til her father
let slip a tweet. We brush our teeth,
his manual, mine electric, I tell him
receded gums never grow back,
that Martin Luther King cheated
on his wife. Did he know the speed of sound?
I don’t know the speed of light.
Then he’s in his bedroom,
clearing the bed, gathering pyjamas like answers,
I want to tell him where lost electoral deposits go –
the Queen – but he already knows.
Soon I’ll find my makeshift bed
downstairs, for the door’s closing
and it’s late. I want to tell him
everything, everything,
everything, but nothing ever comes out.
Sonnet
after Terrance Hayes
In this sonnet I throw a salted caramel milkshake
over your suit. I burn your literature
on my gas hob with all the windows open
and the extractor fan on full blast. I boycott you
but boycotting is not enough. I buy bananas
with no regard to shape or size. I spit near certain
drinking establishments I once frequented with joy.
I lock eyes with you and dance frantically
to hyper-pop songs written for a continental contest.
In this sonnet I am a raven and I speak back
in your language but you laugh at my accent.
I am running up a drawbridge. I am at your bedside
chanting words derived from French:
person, defeat, balance, future, sonnet.
Helen Bowell is a London-based poet and co-director of Dead [Women] Poets Society. She is a Ledbury Poetry Critic, and an alumnus of The Writing Squad and the Roundhouse Poetry Collective. Her debut pamphlet is forthcoming from Bad Betty Press. She works at The Poetry Society.
