Lucy Tunstall

Anoint your dead poems. Put them in a little boat called She Who Must Be Obeyed — our little joke. Invite the Molotovs for cocktails on deck. Tell them to wear all their gold.

I have no idea what happens when I turn my back. I sleep through everything. It is quite stupid how I never open my eyes. The carpet is luscious. The blossom at the window is spectacular. I try to keep them apart. There are more grown-ups than I know what to do with. I have a different Darling for each one. I inflect it. I miss everything — the haunted wardrobe, the bald landlady, the slurring woman crashing up and down the stairs, Look after her, Look after her, Pierrot with his little spoon.

My mother has taken me to Paddington Station. We are inside a whale. My father sleeps all day. When he wakes the cloisters come for him. My sister can sit on her hair. At night, a man sits on her bed. Her bed is covered in oak leaves. The sleeves of my mother’s kaftan trail in the dirt. We keep forgetting it’s not her. The telephone bursts from the wall. The wires are a joke. We get it.