Sarah Drury

West Street

I walk on a street
where hollow heels dissolve
into neatly stacked powder lines.
A sordid fuck traded for a losing,
for a losing of the sense of time.
I splay my legs into the bleak, grey sky.
I’ll go any length, let them go deep,
mine me, de-spine me, despise me.
I don’t care. At the end of the day
I’m high. I’m a blackbird.
I’m a black and blue bird.

Beak full of worm, I sing,
I’m chirpy, chirpy, cheep, cheap,
I blow those sheep,
They pull the wool over
Lucy in the Sky eyes,
over tangerine sky lies.

I pull, I pull for those
spoonfuls of golden brown,
going down, going down.
Lacy bras stuffed with dirty fists,
my green and purple tits,
are hits, are hit, a hit.

He comes,
I am never coming,
never coming down,
from the amped out, meth head, bag bride,
smack, junk, harry, crack, lack
of a high in this dirty old town.

I lay my head between punters’ thighs -
they clasp my broken crown.

He’s coming now,
money changes fists,
I score another high,
another hit,
I’m going up, going up,
I’m coming down,
coming down.

 

Peaches

‘And what’s your news, Nicky?’
‘Mum’s going to London to lift up her skirt.’

The price of a train ticket is higher
than the cost of a hooker’s integrity.

Peach trees in blossom are virgins’ tears,
pink and crowded like a rush hour subway.

I wonder when the suits will go back to
their wives. Tell them they’re working late,
or popped into the bar at the House of Commons.

Peach flesh yields and sits on the tongue
like moist gossip. They speak.

I cannot handle celibate sex.
It makes aches of my fingers.
Forces my eyes onto pornography.

I scream when you force your peach
into my personal space. Finger my pulp.
You don’t even hear me.

My vagina spoke this morning.
Wants to build a wall to stop
semen coming in.

Many a hand has slipped between my peach.
I never wanted to be your glove.

I once wished that I could be Cynthia Payne.
Eating caviar on the backs of the privileged.

You smell peach, sweet and yielding.
You think I am an orchard,
that you can pick me.

The peach trees are in blossom.
You take me.

No More Rides

My son is yanked free from the womb his father built.
Briny lungs contesting.

A blanket of petal-less poppies stains my bed,
where we could have slept, if the stars weren’t stuttering,

Fear quakes in my half-shut eyes, as my baby’s
no-rise chest rises like Lazarus.

I think of the days before the poppies were dressed,
when we were as smooth as Eva Cassidy.

Now I sit here in the NICU. Looking like yesterday’s headlines.
Feasting on antidepressants.

My womb is shut.
I nurse my pendulous, milk-gorged breasts and think of you.

 

Sarah Drury writes poetry and creative non-fiction. Her work draws from society and relationships. She is studying for a master’s degree in creative writing and performs her work regularly at open mic nights - she is the founder of Speak Out Scunny, a spoken word open mic in her hometown. She was shortlisted for the Bridport Poetry Prize in 2022.