Recognition

I’d told you that my brain can’t capture faces,
leaves me blank and reaching without context

clues, some shade of hair or hat, so you waved.
Thank you. It gives me a lift. Some cog connects

to give pleasure from looking at one who said I looked
a pleasure, and saw a glimmer of something else

underneath—but that’s for future walks and waves.
For now, I’m happy to be happy at the memory

of my brain’s happiness to see you, always-new man,
whatever you look like. However you’re made.

Annabel Banks read English Literature at the University of Cambridge before gaining her Creative Writing MA from Royal Holloway, University of London. She is currently writing up her practice-based poetry PhD while lecturing in English and Creative Writing and running poetry workshops in ruined buildings and archives. Annabel’s work has won some prizes, most notably the University of Cambridge’s John Kinsella and Tracy Ryan Poetry Prize and Other Prize for theatre, and the Whitechapel Journal Short Fiction Prize. Her short fiction has been collected in a number of anthologies and was most recently published by Litro. Recent poems can be found in Inky Needles, Envoi, JUNGFTAK, Dirty Chai and Lockjaw. Learn more at http://www.annabelbanks.com or tweet: @annabelwrites.