Sunday 11th April
I watch myself rip the zebra-print wallpaper
The whites are brown nicotine-stained by time,
Curling at my feet like magpie feathers.
A well-fed cat with autumn breath
— do you remember that? Each day is a month.
I remove every trace of your daughter, strip by strip.
Sweets in a jar melting in their plastic wrappers
Added to a black bag a radio and a piggy bank
Pig’s expression forever frozen smug
despite the circumstances
going through the drawers, one by one
removing
lavender soaps, clothes and cat hair,
The word ‘socks’ scribbled in red maker on the wood
The ‘o’ a smiley face
Or maybe it’s shock.
Joshua Jones
Joshua Jones is a queer, autistic writer and poet from Llanelli, South Wales. He has an MA in Creative Writing at Bath Spa University, and is currently studying to become an educator at Cardiff Met. He is a multi-disciplinary artist, and sometimes releases poetry with music under the name Human Head. He writes about music for Nawr Magazine and hosts his own blog at www.ermose.com. He has been published by The Babel Tower, Permeable Barrier, The Common Breath, Reflex Fiction and Streetcake Magazine. He has recently been shortlisted for the Rhys Davies Short Story Prize.
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