The neighbour’s toddler is under our table fists and feet flailing, my mother’s spine glacial, and I’m sat on the banquette eating kedgeree, fish flying around my head in a halo. A few years later mountains are crowbarred out of me when we root up to another country, and now it’s me sheltering under a bed, years pass through me, the weight of the mattress over me, the candlewick hides me, the frame the only thing holding me, my eyes have a heart, its tears stain the boards, the heels of my hands press into the floor, nowhere is safe. A toddler wriggles under a low-slung armchair, she’s rehearsing her birth, Pull me out, I’m stuck. There’s always a child under a table, under the bed, under a chair, under the rubble.
2nd place, Poetry London Prize 2025, judged by Victoria Kennifick