BURST ME INTO SONG

Isabelle Baafi

although perhaps

not a symphony

but a hum

perhaps aloe vera for ulcered gums

and leaf shadows dappling our chests

perhaps the equinox

perhaps afrobeats

perhaps yams        perhaps

                             homeostasis

perhaps orange peel brightens dark 

thoughts         

and the scar on my face  

       gives a lecture 

         on beauty       perhaps you hand me a fig 

and our fingers graze 

and we leave the roast chicken  

       to burn        

perhaps the chivalry of autocorrect       the motherhood 

     of bleach        

perhaps your dirty socks and my unread books 

      the papercut      the sucked thumb the blood

covenant         

perhaps the alarm warns us  

                     about us       

perhaps  

enough points for a free latte        

        perhaps vegan steak   zero waste 

the book of john 

perhaps three buses in a row

perhaps the postman 

holds the lift

and the safety pins  

are where we last saw them

 

Notes: The title for this poem is borrowed from a line in ‘The Virgin Speaks of What She Endured’ by Shivanee Ramlochan.

Isabelle Baafi is the Reviews Editor at Poetry London. Her debut pamphlet Ripe (ignitionpress, 2020) won a Somerset Maugham Award and was a PBS Pamphlet Choice. Her writing has been published in The Poetry Review, The London Magazine, Aesthetica Magazine, and elsewhere. She won Second Prize in the 2022 London Magazine Poetry Prize, and the 2019 Vincent Cooper Literary Prize. She is also a Ledbury Poetry Critic, an Obsidian Foundation Fellow, and an editor at Magma. She is currently studying Creative Writing at the University of Oxford, and writing her debut collection.