WHEN I WOKE UP THIS MORNING I TRIPPED OVER DAD

Anna Shelton


an improvement, since for weeks I’ve been unable to sleep

with him under my pillow, elbows jutting at odd angles,

purpling feet sticking straight out the side.

I showered without him, but stumbled over him on the stairs

going to breakfast; he startled me as I stepped outside,

sat with me as I listened to birds in the garden,

interrupted my train of thought in class. At the table he blocked me,

head down on the hard wood, that final unrelenting view.

He choked me on my food at dinnertime.

When I tried to relax and lean back into an armchair

he was there behind me, making me uncomfortable.

Ever-present dad, suddenly peripheral,

my body doesn’t want to leave you behind.

Anna Shelton is a teacher and writer from Cambridge. Her poem ‘Black Fen’ inspired her first folk song, which she performed at the 2022 Cambridge Folk Festival. She has been published in Coven, Streetcake magazine and the 2024 Sidhe Press anthology To Light the Trails – Poems By Women In A Violent World. She is currently writing her first pamphlet, which was longlisted for Verve in 2023. Find her on Twitter/X @AnnaVShelton and on Instagram @AnnaSheltonWrites