Weighing yourself in the dark at Christmas in your parents’ house
You do not know how to weigh yourself at Christmas
in your parents’ house, now it is no longer yours.
You are used to standing naked each day in your flat
with closed blinds. The kitchen here has none,
no curtains either – but it has the only hard floor.
Last thing at night, your mother gives you a torch:
you close the door, turn off the main light, slip out
of your clothes as if swimming – you never swim.
In a window across the street, a decoration, blue,
flashes on – and – off and everything is silent.
You step onto the glass, naked, wait a beat, step off,
grab the torch to shine over the dancing numbers.
It feels, though, like this is no longer about weight,
but about standing naked in your family’s kitchen,
two windows bared to the night: to tall conifers,
distant houses, flickering festive lights, no eyes,
and you feel so powerful. You fumble for your clothes,
pull on your shirt without bothering with the bra
and, oh – now you finally get why people do that.
You creep upstairs to bed, cotton against bare chest,
feeling woman and gay and adult all in a new way.
You can’t wait, now, to be back in your flat in the city,
existing in dark solitude, your own warm bubble,
behind blinds but with a wide blue world outside.
Elizabeth Gibson, based in Manchester, has received a New North Poets Prize from the Poetry School and a DYCP grant from Arts Council England, and has been published in Atrium, Butcher’s Dog, Confingo, Ink Sweat & Tears, Lighthouse, Magma, The North, Popshot, Queerlings, Spelt, Strix, and Under the Radar. https://elizabeth-gibson.com.
A Rink
Darling, strengthen
your grandmother was this cold once
you do not have to know what to do
but listen to what is asked of you
and then closer to the fuddle inside
the way glass expands against ice
against a note
breathe, the way heat does,
oh no, I’ve done something terrible
I’ve made
Roma Havers is a multi-disciplinary artist based in Manchester. Her poetry has been published in The North and Under the Radar. Roma is the Learning Manager at MMU’s Poetry Library and her show, LOB, debuted in 2022.