Migration Season

There are fifteen seconds in between letting your knuckles turn into scoops

of raspberry ripple ice cream and free falling that

feel like flying. You say that you flew

without a sat-nav, and that hope feels five miles

from where you left your soles.

I started hiding strawberry shoelaces under my bed after you tried to fly again

I said it was an inside joke,

but parts of me were trying to stay tied

to your sand-palaces and watered-down blackcurrant squash:

the parts of me that hadn’t yet become a patchwork quilt in someone else’s living room.

Some migratory birds can travel over a thousand kilometres a day,

so you made the swallows that were lodging in the old shed

muesli. I said it was a waste of oats but

you said that flying required energy so breakfast was appropriate -

I don’t know where you got it from.

Sometimes, if I’m lucky, I’ll catch your face in the mirror

I brush my teeth for four minutes, just

in case, because you hated the dentist. You’d tell me it’s ridiculous,

but you left behind your gums, I guess they didn’t fit

in cabin luggage.

If you come back, come summer time,

don’t tell me I’ve lost all logic if I have spoken to the night sky like a friend

I have lain in the grass until three am hoping to hear the beating of wings.

Elena Chamberlain is a queer poet and writer from the Midlands. Described as “a poet of lyrical depth and razor edge” and a “rising voice not to miss”, she has worked with Apples and Snakes, performed on stages locally and nationally, led poetry collectives and has been published in various magazines/anthologies.