Julia Webb
(1)
that vile orange squash / mum stored on the floor / of the kitchen cupboard / the neon sludge of sediment / collecting at the bottom / of each ridged bottle / its artificial taste / like battery acid / orange but not orange / panic in a glass
(2)
as the giant space hopper / with the kangaroo-shaped handles / how I bounced around the garden for hours / more animal than girl / how mum made me give / the boy next door a go / and he cut a squarish hole / in its thick rubber skin / with his Christmas pen knife
(3)
as the pockmarked skin / of the giant Jaffas / mum ate when she was pregnant / with my sister / the way her thumb nail / scraped its way / through the thick white pith / to the flesh below / little piles of skin on every surface / that orange smell / ghosting through the entire house
(4)
as orange as the walls / of my childhood bedroom / how I recreated them / over and over / in all the places I lived / each time a little paler / than the time before / until the orange / just a whisper / was barely there at all
Julia Webb is a neurodivergent writer from a working-class background. She lives in Norwich, UK where she runs online poetry workshops, mentors writers and is an editor for Lighthouse. She has three collections with Nine Arches Press – the most recent, The Telling, came out in 2022.
andotherpoems.com 