ISSUE 6
Ewen Glass
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When Dancing Is Semaphore
I’m the red flag.
My message? Should’ve eaten more.
Now I’m calling from a bubble
beside other bubbles.
Mitosis on the dance floor.
If I’m communicating from a distance,
she’s a stye. We kiss.
Jaeger flab in mouths.
She says her Mum died –
I don’t know what to say so I pretend I don’t hear,
but I need clarity. When?
This morning. She looks at her watch.
I guess yesterday morning now.
She asks if we can go somewhere and –
I feel lightheaded, all at sea,
my conscience gesticulating.
I ask if she wants to talk about her Mum or –
she sighs and starts grinding against someone else.
I leave to flag down a taxi.
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Ewen Glass (he/him) is a poet from Northern Ireland who lives with two dogs, a tortoise and lots of self-doubt; on a given day, any or all of these can be snapping at his heels. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in HAD, Bridge Eight, Poetry Scotland, Okay Donkey, and elsewhere. On socials – and indeed in real life – he is pretty much ewenglass everywhere.