Poetry 17 February 2021 The NS Poem: Repair is a Failing Trade A new poem by Ali Lewis. Getty Sign UpGet the New Statesman\'s Morning Call email. Sign-up A dropped paring knife, a tray of potatoes in hot fat slipping from the work surface edge. A dough overworked. A haircut, one side then the other, then the first again. I’ve tried to save so much it would be better to let go. A finger opened to the white for a dent avoided. A sopping burn to stave off a semi-public mess. The losing exchange of potential for completion. Beauty chased till it got away. So many of mum’s stories ended with “and all for”: he swerved and broke his neck and all for a squirrel. I asked him once, my old games teacher, if he wished he’d gone on straight and squashed the bastard flat, but words are cheap, and he lied, as you should to a child, and he said he’d do the same. Ali Lewis is associate editor of Poetry London. His debut pamphlet "Hotel" is published by Verve. › How Keir Starmer lost Generation Left This article appears in the 17 February 2021 issue of the New Statesman, War against truth