The tonic root could be a sick man’s thumb.
He had your hair, she said.
But the photographs are tan and monochrome.
The memories are snow.
He had your hair, she said.
He wore it under his hat, to Iceland in the War.
The memories are snow.
Though perhaps none fell there at all.
He wore it under his hat, to Iceland in the War.
I wore it on my scalp to school in 1993,
though perhaps none fell there at all
for what the broken voices said, I fell,
I wore it on my scalp to school in 1993:
ginger ugly ginger ugly ginger mulls my lemon tea.
For what the broken voices said, I fell.
Cold front, hatless child.
Header photograph © Kip Knott.
Laura Wainwright is from Newport, Wales. Her poems have been published, and are forthcoming, in a range of magazines, journals and anthologies. She was shortlisted in the Bridport Prize poetry competition in 2013 and 2019, and awarded a Literature Wales Writer’s bursary in 2020 to finish writing her first poetry collection. She is also author of the book, New Territories in Modernism: Anglophone Welsh Writing 1930-1949 (University of Wales Press, 2018).