You Can Keep This One

By Ella Cunningham
​
​​I’ve been thinking about whether this
is it from here, whether it’s coming home
and kicking my shoes off without
untying the laces. Whether it’s deep-
cleaning the bathroom, buying a new
mattress, a little too firm. Whether it’s
taking our rabbit to the out of hours
vet- again- and looking for a new
desk chair on facebook marketplace.
If it’s getting the usual from the local
Indian restaurant, forcing my bike
up the horrific gradient of Friday Lane
clocking in, clocking out at work
asking your nan about her arthritis
and your sister about her house-hunt,
Is this it- finishing a series, a book,
or me putting petrol in your car, you
picking up my prescriptions. It’s you
holding me when yet another resident
dies at work, when I’m the one who
had to dress them, lay them out. It’s
you, excited to see me on a regular
Tuesday evening, listening to a new
album together in the car. You, proud
of me for writing a few lines of a poem,
you, reading my poems when you don’t
really get them. Liking them anyway.
I’ve been thinking about what it is to
want something. Whether I need to know
something exists before I find it, and
how that could be when we can keep
conjuring these beautiful, normal things
for ourselves from the thin air between us.

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Ella Cunningham (she/her) is a queer poet from Chester, UK. Her work has featured in Bath Magg, Porridge, Stone of Madness, and Poetry Bus, and she was longlisted for the 2021 Plough Prize. She currently lives in South East London and works for a care charity. Twitter: @EllaMadalene