by Elizabeth Loudon

Beneath a chilly bathroom floor in Kensington
the District Line dragged its down-under bodies,
shaking the smallest bones of my feet
as I smeared poison around the rim of rubber
that stoppers the muscled anemone mouth.
It was that or the slack puddle-pouches
holding the ghosts of a million drowned babies
if I wanted to ride the see-saw swing of my heart
each month from deficit to deficit, hug tight
the moon-curve back-ache whenever I ran
on empty. I never let a single calamitous angel
slip through a pin-hole rip. Later I lived
in a house better suited to an estate agent’s camera,
and over the hills came a rented plane
trailing one of those MARRY ME banners
in pink. For a moment – unmothered, unmoored –
I thought it was meant for me. Love at last,
not sex! I ran outside in my nightshirt
to wave my arms, hoping to bring down a man
before I was shot dead, but the question
evaporated into careless blue. I’m sorry
to shock you, but everything passes into
the sky, baby girl. Even love, even you.

Elizabeth Loudon is an Anglo-American poet and novelist now living in southwest England. Her poetry has appeared in journals including Trampset, Whale Road Review, Amsterdam Review, Blue Mountain Review, and Southword. Her debut novel A Stranger In Baghdad was published by AUC’s Hoopoe imprint in 2023. She can be found at elizabethloudon.com and on Bluesky or Instgram.