izzy

Mae stands on the balcony because she doesn’t know where else to be. Stretching her arms out slightly to her sides, she leans lightly on the bannister, trying to look casual and calm as she stares over Jimmy’s head to the brown-bricked terraces across the road. The sun is as close as it’s going to get to glaring in Dumbarton. She is wearing her striped summer tunic, hair rolled back from her eyes. This is the dress in which Jimmy will put his hand on the back of her neck and steer her up or down the stairs. He will undo her hair from their rolls just to irritate her, and she will leave the mousy strands hanging because there’s no point fighting a losing battle. Mae hears a click from beneath her and realises she has been fading into the cracks between the bricks in the house across the street. Jimmy holds his brand new toy aloft, grinning, “one for the albums!” Neither of them know the photograph will come out the milky brown of river water, bleached and overexposed by summer sun.

*

sarah

I blunted my incisors for you
Filed my claws back into my hands
Forced my fierce thighs into nude nylon tights
Taught my howling mouth to simper and smile
You promised me wildness like I’d never known
And like a bitch on heat, I believed you
But this world you wrought is a mockery
Of TV dinners and foot massages
And nights caged in by your sausage-soft arms
Through a crack in the curtain I can see the moon
And she’s burning and bright and baying for blood
This lukewarm love has no bite to match mine

*