Whose idea was this anyway?

a collective noun for strangeness

as if a quiver of queers could 

convulse you back to the prom

ised land O holy messiah of shin-

bleeds and carpet burns from

too many drunk nights damp 

on the welt-dark wine coming

out of the centre (here) where

she dropped her skirt around

her ankles where her nervous

skin spread out like a pentacle

(right here) where she points 

below mellowing berries &

braided maidenhairs bristled

ferns as if a flight of fruits 

could take off in the open 

firmament and never come

down Lord we are living in a

folly of forgetfulness there are

times when scripture can not

blow the hay back into the horse’s

mouth and praying is not able

not enough to stitch a river back 

up a far step from the adequacy 

it needs its swollen roots close to

(oh fuck right here i’m so) the

sweetness of surface a dynasty

of dykes I’ll never know they spent

long and dulcet evenings willing their 

mouths against the rim of something 

magical giving their lips permission 

to kiss borders tongue traces of the tang

ible that can be dreamt when you blur 

your eyes do you see a scroll of 

verse a gathering of concrete

a definite plague of the peculiar do you see it now

Zara Meadows is an emerging poet from Belfast in Ireland. They are one of the Foyle Young Poets for 2020 and they were commended in the Tower Poetry competition of the same year. Zara's work can be found in The Honest Ulsterman and the Irish Times, and it is forthcoming in Banshee.