to return
I want to be able to write poems
that flow free
that don’t need
to mean anything to you
or to me if I were to return
to read them
I want to return
to write poems
of personal follies, fleeting
loves, my own little flaws
to erase
but I’m afraid
I’ll never be able to do that
again.
Roy Duffield’s poems can be read in Feminist Review, Lucent Dreaming, and their collection Bacchus Against the Wall (Anxiety Press, 2023). They’ve won stuff and been nominated and shortlisted for other stuff, including the 2023 Maya Angelou-inspired Still We Rise competition for revolutionary poems. linktr.ee/royduffield