Performing Memories
To smell grass, not feel it,
to reminisce milk cartons
made heated like overused CDs.
Your mouth motions to sip and string
stems apart for daisy chains,
and neck cranes to the spirit of swing sets.
Videos aren’t events anymore.
Prayers are pressure for truth,
and milk doesn’t matter,
but passing french class does
when I’m asked, “doesn’t your mother speak french?”
And she does, but TV fed
moaning weather instead of land,
and pebbles over sand.
Playing means money now,
magic is trained skill
and prison is possible.
Frenzy is stilled by your desire to tame
and desire is mine to trap.
I’m tired of knowing how the sea looks
from a bathroom tap,
and acting like busses are slides
with crayon maps.
Biography: Jo Farrant is an emerging poet currently studying Art and Creative Writing at the University of Reading. She has been interested in writing and creating for several years and explores several themes in her work including the experience of modern life as a mixed race, queer person living in the UK as well as reflections on human identity as a whole.