Resolution by Stephanie Conn

 

It is not okay to grab me in the narrow hall,

or press my back against the chipped vinyl

to shove your dripping tongue into my mouth.

 

Don’t mix talk of cheese, forgotten in the fridge,

with whispered insults, each veined with mould,

or sigh and hiss, insist it is your right or mine.

 

Yes, cloth covers but black and white cannot blot

out red – bruises blush pink on thinned wrists.

Serpents twist, convince with their forked-tongues

 

promising nothing but poison. I will suck it

from every inflicted wound, by-pass your face

to spit the venom on the waste ground, walk on.

 

This poem was first published in The Honest Ulsterman. Stephanie Conn's first collection, The Woman on the Other Side (Doire Press) was shortlisted for the Shine/Strong Award for best first collection. Her pamphlet Copeland’s Daughter won the Poetry Business Pamphlet Competition and is published by Smith/Doorstep. Her new collection ‘Island’ will be published in April 2018 (Doire Press).

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