<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Ear Worm<\/strong><\/p>\n (2018 ABC)<\/p>\n What keeps me awake at night: tumble-drying <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Neil Flatman<\/strong> is an alum of The Community of Writers at Squaw Valley and the Tin House summer workshop. He\u2019s been published in print and online at, among others, Ithaca Lit, Panoply and The Paragon Press. He lives and works in Singapore.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Ear Worm (2018 ABC) What keeps me awake at night: tumble-drying in the warm utility of the mind, rotating with the work shirts and her unforgiving thongs is not the crises of the world: fat thumb of the despot’s hand above the small red button or the plastic patch in the pacific […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18694","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-prose-poetry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18694","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18694"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18694\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18760,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18694\/revisions\/18760"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18694"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18694"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18694"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nin the warm utility of the mind, rotating
\nwith the work shirts and her unforgiving thongs
\nis not the crises of the world: fat thumb
\nof the despot’s hand above the small red button
\nor the plastic patch in the pacific larger and less
\nfragrant than the whole of France. Nor
\nis it the little irritations: the parking space
\nstolen after the octogenarian finally found reverse
\nin the winter dark, a couple, stationary, their roll-on\u2019s
\na barricade across the airport travellator,
\nbut something you might understand, so can we
\nmake a pact like lovers standing hand in hand
\nbefore the jump, or secret agents swapping spies
\non a foggy bridge? Swear you won\u2019t reveal my fear
\nof hearing Billy Collins read. That unique voice
\nand the ironic pause, dry humour and mesmeric close,
\nso easy to fall into as I lie here in the small hours:
\njade glow of the alarm clock beaming gently through
\nthe dark, the sound of a trash man singing softly
\nin Armenian as he passes the house.<\/p>\n