the long night presses over my hands
at the sink
bowls clatter under water
& the brittle light from the stars
burns through the darkness
a ketchup-smear coagulates
& splits off the saucepan
spiralling
down the drain-hole’s milky eye
when the pain in my sacrum uncoils
& stretches
i surrender rather than fight
to slip each sensation
the crickets singing their first song of summer
until the pain condenses
to a bearable thud
the handle of the bread knife turns
familiar in my palm
my absent-mind pulling me
from the darkening whirl of matter in the bowl
towards the glittering vastness beyond it
Daniel Sluman is a 34-year-old poet and disability rights activist. He co-edited the first major UK Disability anthology Stairs and Whispers: D/deaf and Disabled Poets Write Back, and his second collection the terrible was published by Nine Arches Press in 2015. He has appeared widely in UK poetry journals and he was named one of The Huffington Post’s Top 5 British Poets to Watch in 2015. He is currently writing his third collection of poetry, about living with disability and chronic pain, to be published by Nine Arches Press in 2021. He tweets @danielsluman.
Exquisite!