Pen Kease

Pen Kease has taught English Language, Literature and Humanities in secondary schools and recently completed an MA in Writing (Distinction) at the University of Warwick. Her work has been published in a range of magazines, including The Interpreter’s House, The Recusant, Algebra of Owls and Atrium. Currently, her hair is pink.

I’m letting go

the way she swallows.
Noisy, frightened nervous gulps,
as though I’m danger.

I’m letting go 
each spoonerism,
each inarticulate word – 
I know she can’t hear.

I’m letting go
the way each new cough
could easily be her last 
and I can’t help her.

I’m letting go
that hundred-mile drive
even though she’s all alone.
and I can’t be near.

I Missed

Bristol’s skewling seagulls, 

greasy rainbows in dark puddles,

stink from The Cut,

ashes, dust, dog-shit 

pattered through alleys, 


 
war-stories of cigarettes, 

carpet-strewn on pavements

because of random checks 

at H &O Wills factory gate

as girls emptied their underwear.


 
At the docks, men were picked – 

you, and you and you –

other, less fit, old men sent home 

to sulk, to nurse the arthritis

that sent them there in the first place. 


 
I only saw war-rubble 

behind hoardings from the bus, 

anonymous flapping wallpaper,

even twenty years on.  Now  

urban freeways erase ancient streets. 


 
I missed all that clanking noise. 

stink of salt and tar, 

tang of rust. We, the over-spilled

were moved to resentful villages.

Slums were cleared. 


 
                                      I still don’t know I’m born.