Sophia Argyris

years with blue mother

We set our limitations early.
Don’t upset the day’s tender balance.
Don’t look happiness directly in the eye.

The house sagged with feelings.
Some bodies always need fierce movement,
the looseness of being outside.

Cycling the beach road with playmobil people
tucked in our pockets, climbing trees in empty
forests. We ran the gauntlet of such

freedoms. I shrank into my smallest shape
but I was growing all the time. I’m still
wishing you happy. I’m still hoping

to find a cure. You’d think I’d recognise
impossible by now. I’d have swallowed
your whole sorrow if I could, burnt it

in the furnace of my gunpowder body, watched
the ash turn to Brimstone moths and gather
close to your light. Because you did also

shine. Sea, always our best colour. I used to 
spread it thick on paper. We used to simmer
in it, salted and ever so careful.

It’s with me even in your long absence
tidal in the kitchen every morning, it fills
the fridge and spills across the lawn.

But I’m fine. I don’t want you to worry.
I know there are other colours to choose from.
I’ve closed and locked the doors.

skye

You drove us, as you always did
the restless miles.

East to West this time, across the neck
of Scotland, to Kyle of Lochalsh

and on to Skye. I’ve forgotten most of it.
Green and brown skin of mountains sloping

down around the valley where you parked
the car. A world much made for weathering.

The crooked teeth of the Storr leant
godlike on the sky, while I shivered in a blur

of fever, knowing only you nearby
and the wrap of duvets. I never climbed.

I never thought of courage at the time —
yours or mine, or the solitary thrust of a life.

Sophia Argyris is of British-Greek origin and grew up in Belgium and Scotland. She has recently been placed in the Verve and Welshpool competitions. Her work has appeared in Poetry London, Poetry Wales, and Under the Radar. Her pamphlet ‘Heronless’ will be published by Palewell Press in 2025.

Sophia wrote the following about her poem:

Growing up with a parent who suffers from depression can impact us in childhood and adulthood — how we limit ourselves, how we see the world. In these poems I wanted to reflect on this, as well as acknowledging how a parent who suffers from depression can still be very loving, inspiring, courageous and strong. We see our parents through the lens of our relationship to them — but every human is complex, and has their own ancestral traumas and personal histories.