Poetry 8 July 2020 Dear Postie A new poem by Joe Carrick-Varty Getty Sign UpGet the New Statesman\'s Morning Call email. Sign-up If no answer please leave parcel behind rhododendron – if storm hits and rhododendron blows away please leave parcel inside wheelie bin with brick on top – if crying baby can be heard on approach tap three times on bottom-left panel of shed window – DO NOT ring doorbell – if rainbow windmill spins slower than usual open phone and call alcoholic father – if rainbow windmill stops spinning at any moment come back in month with picture of alcoholic father eating fish and chips in park – if phone rings out wait for nesting swallows to return from Africa then call again – DO NOT mention alcoholic father to friends colleagues woman you love – DO NOT kiss woman you love – DO NOT eat sleep shit watch TV until alcoholic father is spotted leaving Tesco with Guinness and Hula Hoops – DO NOT I repeat DO NOT drive to 24-hour Shell Garage spend following afternoon outside alcoholic father’s flat old ladies watching – bay windows blue with Countdown. Joe Carrick-Varty is a British-born Irish poet living in London. He is the author of two pamphlets, "Somewhere Far" (The Poetry Business), which won the 2018 New Poets Prize, and "54 Questions For the Man Who Sold a Shotgun to My Father", forthcoming from Out-Spoken Press. › “It shames me. I was so institutionalised”: Ex-officer Kevin Maxwell on leaving the police This article appears in the 10 July 2020 issue of the New Statesman, State of the nation