Nostalgic
by Nicola Caroli
Ants love my saliva,
gather around my spit.
Tiny tough bodies.
If I were one of them,
a young woman would
lift me out of the tub
with a tablespoon
before she let the water in.
One of those moments
when a soldier remembers
her first schoolbag, blue
with red stripes, and then
loads her gun.
Nicola Caroli is a neurodivergent writer and breath explorer living on the outskirts of Berlin. She trained at Royal Academy of Dramatic Art and has an MFA in Creative Writing from Vermont College of Fine Arts. Combining her qualifications, she created interdisciplinary poetry events for over twenty years. Her work is published or forthcoming in the Bath Flash Fiction Award Anthology 2024, Sacrifice: A Duskbound Books Anthology, and in the magazines Feral, RockPaperPoem and others. She has won the Write Mango Award at the Scottish Arts Trust Story Awards for the most bizarre entry 2024. You can connect with her on Instagram @nicolacaroli26.