You are dying for the third time

~ And Other Poems

            Alice Frecknall

and finally. The sky 
above your bed all 
squares and joins, white

in an off way, your 
slack jaw spilling. 
Marionette of loosening 

strings, you raise 
a finger – question or 
command? Conductor preparing 

for the downbeat. 
Five days 
from now there will be 

flowers, a carnation 
resting its head, and everything 
yellow will rust.

Alice Frecknall is a writer and fine artist. Her debut poetry collection, Somewhere Something is Burning, is published by Out-Spoken Press. Her writing has been widely anthologised, including in fourteen poems, bath magg, Butcher’s Dog, and The Stinging Fly, and was shortlisted for The London Magazine Poetry Prize 2023, Out-Spoken Prize for Poetry 2023, and Lightship International Short Story Prize.