The purpose
I’m six days late
and this is known as a
delinquent period.
We’re amused by this
if nothing else.
The first thing you do
after I say pregnancy out loud
is sit on the loo and search
sensory deprivation tank London.
I see you typing as I brush my teeth.
You find one in Angel
three sessions for £90
which seems like a good deal;
tell me about the tonne of salt
guaranteeing buoyancy
the music they play at first
the lid they shut over you
then silence
and I am very touched
by the slim pellucid fear
folding and unfolding
in the space behind your neck.
I spit, say I’ll come too
and you say that would
defeat the purpose
Clara-Læïla Laudette is a writer, facilitator and journalist. She won Magma’s Judge’s Prize, was shortlisted for the Oxford Poetry Prize and the Aesthetica Creative Writing Award, and longlisted for the National Poetry Competition and Mslexia’s Women’s Poetry Prize. Her work is forthcoming or has appeared in Scarlet Review, fourteen poems, Poetry Review, Lineage, Propel, Oxford Poetry and Magma, among others.