Poetry by Laura Potts
The past slid back
and our childhood stands
in a long-worn place:
the plush of our hands
by a stammering fire,
the sputtering tongue
of a candle then higher
than dark, brotherly hills.
Still, I see the films of our eyes
now flicking with years:
warming our bones
on the doorstep of home;
the ropeswing,
the late light,
the searchlight
which groaned
in that long afternoon
when you didn’t come home.
Alone,
the cracks in this ground
still hold twelve-year old feet.
The voice of the child that you were
curling the ceiling to meet
with the ghost of your long-lost
past.
And last,
I think of the distant
chime of your voice
that split
at my skull;
my dull dumb thumb
on the telephone which rung
out the world
for your words,
screaming:
wherever you were
you were gone.
Morning on the water
and a wet-mouthed world
gave a lost last look
at the lovers who curled
on the banking,
spinning,
awake
poured a hot greasy laugh
at the stars in the lake.
I remember you
my laughing love
when that night
we had chips
and grins
and no scent of filth
on our teeth
on our lips. Down fingertips
the long hot
silver which spilled
from your skin
I remember
when the feminine ring
of a shop bell, the fossilised swing
by the garden shed
rings out an evening.
But here and now,
the garden giggles and springs
at the chime of your name.
Your voice, unremembered,
I’d know miles away.
Laura Potts is twenty-two years old and lives in West Yorkshire. Twice-recipient of the Foyle Young Poets Award, her work has been published by Aesthetica, The Moth and The Poetry Business. Having worked at The Dylan Thomas Birthplace in Swansea, Laura was nominated for The Pushcart Prize and became one of the BBC’s New Voices last year. Her first BBC radio drama aired at Christmas. She received The Mother’s Milk Writing Prize and a commendation from The Poetry Society in 2018.
