boudicca

you’re a brewery down the road
i drank a bottle of your finest on the train back from bury st edmunds
the red queen (no one will call you ginger)
i see you everywhere
realised you were also the wetherspoons round the corner
the one with the strange toilets
resembling a 1970s parlour
at your spoons they won’t serve shots until after 8
until then they’re a family pub

at night my dreams were on fire everything
tinged with the cling of woodsmoke
an elderly lady wrapped me in a woollen cloak
her white whisps like a crown of candles
against the amber
she handed me a wooden cup and with
a gentle hum invited me to the aecerbot1
before i could answer a fox ate her throat
i guess it was a bad omen –

 

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1an Anglo-Saxon field blessing

 

 

Emily Veal is Birmingham poet who recently graduated with an MA in Creative Writing Poetry from UEA. Currently she lives in Staffordshire working as a Prison Librarian.