On the return, we knew that the sun
waking us at 05:30 wouldn’t cut it.
The heat traced across our faces
gave us headaches.
The bed was too low and when I’m bigger
the rush to the loo would become a danger,
so we switched rooms
to somewhere dimmer and cooler, a little less bright,
where I could shuffle to relief in the night.
With peeling white walls and slat wardrobe doors
and slat blinds with knotty pulley chords.
The floor, just visible around the wedge of the bed,
will need muscle memory to navigate
and soon sleep strained through lumps
in the mattress will be slept strictly sideways.
On waking, only the back of your head or your eyebrows
will be visible, and I will smile.
In the middle of the night, when we are unaware,
your deeper grumble-snore will be the metronome
that we, the three of us, will breathe to.
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Published by alyssiaonline
Alyssia MacAlister is a writer, editor, artist and mother, who lives with her partner in Brighton. On both page and stage, Alyssia is concerned with exploring narratives with a poetic frame, finding the beautiful in the strange. In writing she can find unspoken traumas and the meanings behind silences. Wide-ranging past interests include virtual reality and the female body, spiders and grief. Alyssia’s specialty is prose poetry, but she often works in found poetry and experiments with more traditional verse. In addition, Alyssia writes lucid fiction and essays, while also creating artwork mostly in pencil. She also has a scalpel eye for editing any kind of poetry or prose and can produce poetry workshops.
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