Mum near Covent Garden
dragging her feet after work
buys a top she’ll never wear
and trudges home to find us
sitting in front of the tv
cottage pie back in the oven
whatever it was
that crossed her mind
transposed
rage solo at a different
pitch low enough to be
inaudible we turn
the volume up still
light at half eight
the curtains drawn
the first poem I wrote was in
my mind looking outside
while my parents
fought my brother hiding
under the bed a
paleblue thought in
our mother’s mind moving too
fast to be caught
Will Harris’s “RENDANG” won the Forward Prize for best first collection. His second collection, “Brother Poem”, is published by Granta
[See also: The NS Poem: The estate agents take a tour]
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This article appears in the 01 Mar 2023 issue of the New Statesman, The Mission