On Saturday nights I’d lick the wax from strangers’ ears
whilst they’d tell me to pack my bags for Pleasure Beach,
Costa Blanca, or Seoul. I was in the ear canal when the knock
came with an offer of someone else’s child. She did not have
my eyes. I tried to take them out, make room for new ones.
One lunch time, I pushed my nails into her tiny sockets,
yanked to see if they fit. I strolled around with a pram full of flint,
pushing up escalators, through gas stations, over pebbled beaches.
I told any lover to call me ma in waking hours. Nothing sticks.
Between the brambles, the judges’ hands still find me.
Don’t come for my bones. I put the word no out on the lawn,
to see if anyone would take it. Night, she still pulls at my ankles,
laughing as the house sings.
Annabel Taylor-Munt is a poet, film-maker and lecturer who grew up in the north of England
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This article appears in the 07 Nov 2024 issue of the New Statesman, Trump takes America