Sarah Drury

Counting Tiles

That last brandy and Babycham
made fairgrounds of my head.
My mind swirls around like
a goldfish in a bag - 

I gawp at the stiletto heels
crushing fag ends into carpets
lined with dreams of
kisses with tongues and
fingerings in the toilets.

Dim lights shushing a scream
of a tit, a crushing of a thigh,
a pulse of a slick dick.

I am counting the tiles on
the bathroom floor.
I cannot see through the
haze of last night’s mascara,
smeared battle cries across my cheeks.

Lipstick stains your cock scarlet,
like a rose knighthood, given by a queen
who could barely suck for
the Botox.

I cover the stale smell of your
old news cadaver with eau de parfum,
and ask your name.

 

Poisoning the Sunday Roast

I want to masticate your manhood
Spit it out

Is her garden
smattered with laburnum
more fragrant than my cherry tree?

My fallen cherries bruised
my chalice swollen

I trust you
I try
You lie

I think of ewes and lambs, of old and new,
of poisoning the Sunday roast

I think of death

 

Birthing Armies

I am alone. I am lonely.
I am my spine, spun of steel, I feel
the fall, the fear, I am the tear
that falls upon the fell, I am
the girl that fell and no one broke her 

fall.

I am full. I am full of empty. I am full of nasty,
mighty men who want me when I am
resplendent, I am death’s descendant.

I am wombs of worries birthing armies,
screaming “I am sorry.”

I am fighting. 

 

Sarah Drury is a half-crazed poet and MA student from the UK. She spends her time writing, painting, and trying to get her teen to tidy his room. She has been published in a number of anthologies and online magazines and was shortlisted for the Bridport Poetry Prize in 2022.