I saw your face in the rain-washed window 
Of a toy shop at 7pm—your eye a star 
With its own symmetry. I wanted your talent: 

I wanted to swell like a synth in love, to unravel 
In minor keys, to color myself with mechanical light. 
I’ve bought more gin than groceries this month, Thom. 

I’ve treated off-licenses as confessionals, shelves 
Winking in broken code. Still, you remind me 
That I’m here, hello, my mind pulsing in polyrhythm—

But what am I to do with these elliptical nightmares, 
This cut-up vulnerability? What am I to do 
When I still want to disappear completely? I’m sick 

Of weeping beneath Heathrow’s flight paths, 
The sky boarding its hard silence. God, Thom, I want 
To dance like the future will be there, to embrace 

The static of an audience’s crosshairs. Forgive me for 
Still learning, for still being sadder than 
A thrice-used teabag, asking the Tetley box 

For a sign, each crack in my kettle a measure. Fuck it: 
Let’s scream into the Thames until 
The Saxons come slinging out so we can both

Look England in its murky eye. My throat’s full of dial tones 
And lost postcodes, a hard drive dying 
In slow motion. What if we’re nothing but pure data?  

And what are we to do with England’s 
Polite apocalypse? A ghost with a run-down halo, cathedrals 
Of betting shops, wishes like scratched-up B-sides. 

There aren’t enough foxes in the suburbs, Thom. 
My insomnia’s louder than the Victoria Line. 

---

Iain Grinbergs (he/they) is an English professor and the author of Vanity Twist, a chapbook (Bottlecap Press). He earned his Ph.D. in English from Florida State University. His work appears in or is forthcoming from South Florida Poetry Journal, FlashFlood, Meridian, Ghost Parachute, Jersey Devil Press, and other literary journals. His website is iaingrinbergs.com. Find him on Bluesky @g-bergs.bsky.social.