Under Construction @ Keele 2016 Volume 2 Issue 2 | Page 57

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being lesbian because of these values. This is something that I address in later poems
where I intentionally deconstruct the structures of success and failure.
A Lover of (William) Shakespeare and (Virginia) Woolf
Contused, blue lipsit’s not cold- she’s reading Richard III
and tearing tea like an exodus, separating boiled water
with each sip.
Still, her lips are blue.
She is recyclable. Like water.
A new model army made
out of fashionable clothes.
The drained, woollen scarf embroidered with drakes ripples
over her flattened chest (the drape presses heavily).
Her lip-sync, blowfish movements
are like ineffective barcodes on still water bottles.
A product synaesthesia, mute, loose
use-less numbers.
Cannot buy.
Cannot taste.
She’s still cold – an impartial sister.
And I am warm, I have a coat and hoodand sketches of selective memory.