}} Consent |

Poetry at Sangam

SangamHouse

 










Consent

On the radio it wasn’t tyranny
she just said
all the men that have assaulted me in my life
have been nice guys
in a voice that made me think of when your finger
pushes through the cellophane and touches cool meat
FLESH     you think    with your flesh
I was cooking dinner like a citizen
The interviewer was like    woah
I put the chicken down and walked outside
The lawn    the herbs    the ornamental tree
What a sharp and unexpected boredom
Have I     Have I given my consent    O lazy
girl if you don’t burn down suburbia
where can you go with a pretty mouth   Who
will you bury in ankle-length yesses and pearls
Mum arises in the backdraft of my cigarettes
though so long into the dark herself she has
poor working syntax and is flat-out knackered
Kid    she spells on the threshold    Even the wind
that cannot read or bone a chicken knows its own mind