The husk of a once-white security camera
that’s seen bits of me I haven’t
sulks beneath barbed wire
of an open window
of an empty police station. With a whiff
of blue bread, browning leaves,
it’s in slumber. I say slumber and not a grave
because stickers on the lamppost
say we have a new them/other
to manage. Ink stains my fingers. Are we
just like any/other big city now?
The bus depot signage, a victim
of one storm or another, is left
to evaporate on the ground, shouts
down the street, ‘you can’t keep leaving
if we don’t remind you you’re here!’
By the way, why’s it so embarrassing
to carry an umbrella and why can I never
tell which way the wind is blowing
until it moves something else?
Like the can in the pond of the memorial
garden, its reflection a wedged-open
bottom jaw, in shock or in awe.
Amy Ferguson (she/they) is an emerging writer living in Omagh, and a barista-turned-9-to-5er. When they’re not rolling on a rugby pitch or blogging about books (@bookishbarista), they're writing prose and poetry which centres working-class existence, as well as the intersection between ecology and queerness.
More work by Amy Ferguson
Tel: 028 7126 6946
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