Alexandra Melville
When the courier arrives and if the product matches
the description. How sweet or bitter a clementine tastes
and how much pith sleeps under the skin.
If the cat is sick on our bed or the floor.
Whether my period comes. If you hide
a bottle at the back of the cabinet.
How much rain falls in September.
Whether my mother remembers, forgets, or chooses
not to recall the reason I cried when I was 22.
If it hurts more to not matter or not to be understood.
If the tissue tears when pulled from the box.
How much the water bills. How much gold
is hidden in my mother’s crawlspace.
When the windscreen chip will spread like a web
snapped in frost across the glass.
If the pain will be worth the cost. The cost
of gas next month. How sorry you are
when you say you are sorry. How long
between meetings. Which birds are in the bay tree
this autumn and which will fall prey,
dragged in, eyeless and bust. When you choose
to drink and exactly what that drink will be.
How quickly I can learn acceptance. If I remember
what I ordered last night and what I was making up for.
If my friends remember my birthday. Who will die
before October 10 th and whether their funeral
will be sweet or bitter and how much
sleeps under the skin. When the medic arrives
and if the diagnosis sticks. If you are sick
on the floor or in my hand, gazing up
at a black sky like the fallen bird from the bay.
Whether my friend forgets or chooses to forget
how many days she cried when she was 40.
When it feels harder to live in fear than be bereaved.
If a glass will crack, slipping off the rack at night
and how you’ll push me behind you in case
someone’s there; how angry you’ll seem
trying to protect me. Whether you will protect yourself.
Who doesn’t get protected. Who doesn’t get born.
How much my mother’s caesarean scar aches.
Whether I’ll know how much or little was my fault.
How long you’ll be sober. How long I’ll need to complete
the step of letting go. If the strawberries go bad
before we can finish eating them. How long
it will take the red to fade from your lips
after you die. How much it will hurt. If a spider’s thread
catches the light when the sun sinks over the bay.
The sun, falling and rising.
Alexandra Melville’s poetry has appeared in The Rialto, Magma, The Moth, Bath Magg, The Interpreter’s House and Under The Radar, among others. Her debut pamphlet is published by Broken Sleep Books. She was highly commended in the Forward Prizes 2021 and shortlisted for Oxford Brookes’ International Poetry Competition 2022.
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