illustration
Eugenia Loli
translation
He told me my voice rung like a bell –
clasped his fingers together
and moved them swiftly, side to side,
to indicate the sound he meant.
The mimed bell was small and delicate,
the kind kept on nightstands of old aristocrats.
I will think of you, he said in his thick Russian accent,
every time I see a bell like this.
I smiled, nodded, said thank you.
But really I wanted to clutch his swinging wrist
and say this is not me.
I could never be that bell.
Can’t you hear it?
I belong high in an old clock tower
ringing low and deep and far.
My sound is ancient, heavy,
weathered by hundreds of storms.
Christina Thatcher is a PhD student and postgraduate tutor at
Cardiff University where she studies how creative writing can
impact the lives of people bereaved by addiction. Her poetry
and short stories have featured in a number of publications
and her first collection was shortlisted in Bare Fiction's Debut
Poetry Collection Competition. Follow her @writetoempower.