James McDermott
trimming my tash over the sink felled hairs
form into a blonde man’s clip-on ponytail
heave it out the basin to chuck it but
two ponytails binned in there like dead rats
stagger to stairs to spot ten ponytails
one on each step down to the living room
his armchair has a ponytail TV
my crisp sandwich doesn’t have a hair in
it has a ponytail I flee the house
coughing up ponytails in the garden
his stuck spade has a ponytail his gnome
his red poppies have each grown ponytails
sobbing buckets of ponytails I clock
the earth has my father’s ponytail now
James McDermott’s poetry collections published by Nine Arches Press include ‘Father Myself’ and ‘Wild Life’. James’s poems have been widely published in journals including Poetry Wales, Magma, Fourteen Poems, The North and Butcher’s Dog.
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