Today’s choice
Previous poems
Jacob Mckibbin
weeks after being stabbed
my brother saw his attacker
at a petrol station
my brother was alone &
did not get out of the car
even in the ambulance
my brother said he wasn’t scared
even when the white bathtowel
we pressed against the stab wound
soaked up so much blood
it had its own heartbeat
my brother told the police
guarding his hospital bed
at first he thought
he was only being punched
even cut skin doesn’t want to believe
in the existence of knives
even before the guilty plea
my brother said he wouldn’t go to court
my brother is more likely to share a cell
with someone who would kill him
than to admit the person
who tried to kill him
had scared him
Jacob Mckibbin is a poet and writer from Oxford. He has had work published in several magazines including The Rialto and Oxford Poetry.
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