Three Poems
Mars
My brother and I
liked to stand, feet in
weighted boots and play
catch the easy way,
the balls curving slow.
We’ve matured since then –
he explores while I,
laboratory-bound,
study the things he brings
back; strange aliens.
The best place to throw
was on a moon, with
soft gravity and
gentle drops, our clasping
fingers firm around
the sphere. Our leaps drove
high, we spun, we snatched
and neither won or
lost, just passing back
and forth beneath dark
space. He liked the globe
with blue swirls best:
it promised new worlds.
I liked the red ball,
thought it looked like home.
Spit
I spit on you. In drought times
we drop manners like so many
cracked amphorae, pushing and
grabbing with hot fingers and
stamping hard red feet.
But
my saliva is a gift. I spit on you
because your skin looks dry and
rainless and with my spiral pads
I try to rub the dust away.
Boo
Driven to detour
through a forest of fingers
spasmed against the skyline.
Shadows stretch further
to tickle the hubcaps.
'Fuck me, the engine's gone.
We've blown a gasket.'
With teen logic, it makes sense
to drive away the winter frost
with chaffing.
So obligatory blonde will blow him too.
'Going for a slash,' he says, unaware
of accidental, accurate semantics.
'Be right back.'
Wind blows, dark grows.
She taps the steering wheel with neon claws.
'There's no such thing as monsters,' she reassures
herself.
She doesn't see the grey thing
right behind her
Rhian Waller has recently earned an English Literature and Creative Writing BA, and is about to begin a Postgrad doctorate in Creative and Critical writing. She has produced stories of various quality since she was five, and has published a handful of poems in magazines such as Cause & Effect and The Harrow. She would very much like to publish some more.