From the series Postcards from Rock Bottom
One morning
in between your fifth and sixth sip of coffee
I will spread a map across the table,
spill the contents of your mug into the nearest flower pot,
(then make you another one – one sugar, no milk)
and arm you with a magnifying lens
until you trace back every alley,
every bus stop, every local supermarket
where somebody’s vocal chords had glitched and called you
unremarkable.
Barefoot, with a megaphone in hand,
I will trudge through every muddy trail,
from the riverside in East Kilbride to the Coliseum,
back through the camping sites in south-west England and up
into your bedroom window.
I will spell your light so many times into the wind
that its vibrations reach you –
at seven, at thirteen, at twenty-one –
and you forget the taste of words like
almost, barely, disappointment.
To some, you are the astronomical anomaly.
When NASA hands the job to Stuart,
he is assigned a simple task: watch the explosion.
Keep in mind
it is not an optical illusion. Not a comet, not auroras, not the sun itself.
You will think it is a human body in spontaneous combustion.
It is not; it is a human body
made of light. It is a prism in a burning room.
Astronomers have called it indescribable, left it in a box for further study,
but Stuart still takes notes.
January 14:
The light explosion stirs in bed,
wakes up at 7:53,
makes itself a bacon roll.
Cracks its neck,
sets its hair on fire,
keeps entire cities warm.
Yanita Georgieva
Yanita Georgieva is a BBC Radio journalist and poetry writer based in Scotland. She grew up in Beirut and keeps finding bits of it everywhere she goes. Her work has featured in Lebanese and British publications including Rusted Radishes and Pushing Out the Boat.
