Euphonism;

I don’t want to write another poem

I don’t want to think in metaphors

I don’t want to dig out words of contentment

I ain’t looking to laureate

I ain’t expecting to longlist

I ain’t no damn poet

I teach science, secondary

I only rhyme the -ologies

Yet, I vowed to submit verse

In a contest about comfort

Fuck comfort

There is no comfort in poetry

There is no comfort in words

There is no comfort post-pandemic.

I’ll repeat [Because that’s all poems do]

There is no comfort post-pandemic

There was once upon a time comfort

It still reverberates in memory

Echoes of decorated cinderbrick

Hands raised, pages spread open

Passion alighted

Comfort. What comfort?

What once was comfort now flays layers

of recollections and exposes raw, pulsating pain.

But I’ve been challenged to make it feel

like a hug. Write poems about sandy toes, first books...

And bread.

I’m a teacher

There is no comfort

[And I know not the hell of what I’m doing].

.

32