2nd place, 2019 Robert Burns Poetry Competition - published poets section

coming home
        after Mary Dorcey and Cherry Smyth

this nail woman is the real deal
the edges of my nails like chopped chilies deep in a fresh cut
she knows how to administer the kind of pain a woman needs to feel
in order to know something is working
the nail woman is not from here and neither am i
it’s not the kind of place where they wear name badges
it’s just her and her man
both feeling the top end of sixty
in this tiny shop where she does the nails and he does the clothing alterations
i keep thinking about the white shirt that makes my wide childbearing hips look like ships
and how much better it’d look cropped

i have the misfortune of an accent
but this nail woman has a whole other language going on
i stare at the nine tips for keeping your nails good
while she admonishes my weak nails and reptilian-like dry hands
i get the feeling she makes her own cuticle oil
she’s mad that i bought a voucher online
she says she had to pay money for that
and it would be better in the future if i bring cash
because then i can get a discount
i feel like moving in
she knows exactly the right amount of words to be in complete control of her life

yellow? she asks a second time
i want to drown inside a factory that makes only yellow things
in a vat of yellow paint that has only just developed a skin
the skin of that yellow paint will hold me like a basket
until it can hold me no more

the ceramic artist is there when i get back to my new place
smashing saucers against the front wall
my bedroom is at the back
he is filling the garden with ceramic mushrooms
says when he’s on mushrooms it’ll be a total head fuck

i can’t sleep at night for coughing
last night i had some kind of night terror
where i was maybe screaming maybe crying maybe just sleeping
i ran to the bathroom mirror and checked my face for tears

in the corridor people give me words as if it’s no trouble
i say i like what they say and they say take it    it’s yours
they are so sure of the abundance of language
i say things
i don’t remember them
people ask
what happened?
and i don’t know what they are talking about

the house is old in the way that things in new countries are old
people ask things here about the wind
trees
the age of your house
i tell them i don’t have a house
what about at home     at home they insist
making sure i don’t belong
i say i don’t know but it’s in a cul-de-sac
they are never satisfied with that
i still remember learning how to spell bungalow after we moved in