Amy L. King
Whose hands were always busy carving something;
table legs, red meat from the butcher, our small
names into the belly of a tree. Erin, who held me
by the wrist whenever she led us through a crowd.
Who made sure I knew how easy it was
to throw a woman over her shoulder. Whose name
isn’t Erin, but will know this poem is for her
when I say harmonica. Erin, I think of you when I slip
through the fingers of a nettle bush, when a wasp
twitches on the lip of my glass. Us poets love to abandon
readers in a nature image; lead them to the edge
of a wind-whipped coastal path; press them
against a window as rain pummels the house. Where
should I leave you, Erin? On the playing field, that cold-
bright morning after you drank the bar dry, squared up
to the bouncer; coasting Snake Pass in the dark, your
Britney CD on repeat, smothering the apologies
bedded in my throat. Erin – I’m still trying to romanticize
the lightning flick of your tongue, blackberry
coloured bruises, all the things you learnt to do with your hands.
Amy L. King is a writer living in Manchester. She won the inaugural Derby Poetry Festival prize in 2023 and was longlisted for the Aurora Prize in 2025. Her work can be found in Magma, fourteen Poems, Under the Radar, Dust poetry and DIVA magazine.
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