RACHEL WILD
Paper
catches me
I’ve swum in paper
used it as a bandage
a shrink.
My computer screen blinks
nothing to say
but paper wraps me in its
gold,
reminds me of
salty food.
Paper travels hard,
I don’t leave paper
behind
I have multitudes
of pages,
Stacks, bricks,
colour coded (once)
books filled
with handwriting
some chaotic,
the occasional paragraph
a gift.
Lists of days,
what I did, what we did,
how I felt at home
with my girls
a kind of ecstasy
mushrooming
from the floorboards.
I could cut the spines
of my books
use them to paper
the walls.
Imagine,
a time might come
when we burn books
for warmth,
when the web
has crashed
and kindness has
been vanquished
Rachel Wild is based in London. Her writing is published in The Honest Ulsterman, Ellipsis Zine, Ink, Sweat and Tears, Virtual Zine, Versification and elsewhere. She is an editor at The Forge Literary Magazine and is addicted to reading.
It's not easy getting a book or pamphlet accepted for review these days. So in addition to the regular review section, the One Poem Review feature will allow more poets' to reach a wider audience - one poem featured from a new book/pamphlet along with a cover JPG and a link to the publisher's website. Contact the editor if you have released a book/pamphlet in the last twelve months or expect to have one published. Details here
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