Katie Beswick
1.
Three cloud wisps
forming a line-drawn vulva,
its clitoris engorged.
We laughed so hard, the ozone tore.
We took the 274 out to London Zoo,
where a capuchin keeper told us monkeys could sense
by the weight of the sky
when rain was coming.
I pointed and said, Her too!
Having the time of my life.
Saw this and thought of you.
2.
Greetings from paradise!
Each dusk lights a blue night
through the flung open window.
Sea foams under flaring sun.
My breath spills wide as the sky
and rises very near it. Cloud-like.
I hope it’s nice where you are.
I heard Heaven hum behind the stars
like waves in a shell curve.
It was sparkling.
Write back soon.
3.
Clouds cresting coast line,
touching sand, tender as feathers.
You had candyfloss clarity.
Hours later, I was picking you from my teeth.
What does one call
the presence of a person no longer in the room?
Mother said it was typical,
how you came like an overcast day
and wrapped us in your weather.
I miss you.
I wish you were here.
Katie Beswick is a writer from south east London. Recent poems have appeared in Rattle, Narrative Magazine, Arc Poetry Magazine, Ink Sweat & Tears and New Verse Review. Her chapbook is Plumstead Pram Pushers (Red Ogre Review 2024), and her hybrid book of poetry, arts criticism and cultural history is Slags on Stage (Routledge 2025).
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