 :
Something’s wrong
This is how it will start:
from the other side of a room
you’ll hear your mum talk, loud
but so fast you won’t be able
to follow and she will see
you’re looking so she’ll come
over and pull you aside.
Listen to me, she will say,
I’ve got something to tell you,
and you will think of cancer—
breast, perhaps, or womb—
but her eyes will be wide open,
and her teeth will shine with spit
and she’ll pant a little laugh
before she tells you that she is
the Holy Ghost and you will
stare at the flakes of mascara
beneath her lashes before you
turn your back. Years later
you will feel her strong fingers
clutching at your bicep.
Sharon Phillips started learning to write poems a few years ago, after she retired from her career in education. Her poems have been published online and in print, and have been shortlisted for the Bridport Prize (2017), the Indigo Firsts pamphlet competition (2018) and the WoLF Poetry Competition (2019). Sharon won the Borderlines Poetry Competition in 2017 and was among the winners of the Poetry Society Members’ Competition in November 2018. She lives in Otley, West Yorkshire.