Audio
Credits
From Waiting to Burn, Templar Poetry, 2006
Winner: First Thursday International Poetry Competition 2005
First published in The Rialto 58
Electricity
​
It was the way you looked at her. It sent her
up, threading through the light fitting,
fast electric she bounced round the filament
then up again, through wires, through walls
up to the weathervane, set it spinning
as she turned physics upside-down,
lightning from earth to sky, charging
up the atmosphere; she pinballed off
the silver plate moon, struck the roof
and she was the house, its electrified frame,
her heart the room you stood in. Lightbulbs
fizzed till she found the rubber soles
of her shoes. All this so fast you couldn't see it.
The hairs on her neck are raised from the static.
Her cheeks buzz numb. She is still smiling.