Tamara Evans

Against advice

 we keep our son in a jar. He fills it like oil.

We’re careful not to leave him in direct sunlight.

He’s learned to twist the lid off from the inside

like an octopus. He is very clever. He used to climb

up our backs when he was a toddler

and couldn’t sleep. His cries shook the house

before we settled him in with us, two tree trunks

for his gibbon hands and feet. On bad days

I keep the jar in the front room with the curtains

drawn and tea-lights burning. They make it cosy

and ward off bad smells. Blue for the ambulance.

Red for the palace of sin. There are DVDs he can watch.

His favourite is SpongeBob as befits his octopus status.

People ask how long we’ve had him and did he arrive

before dawn in the veg box like an extra pumpkin?

Did we steal him out of someone’s pram

in that Tudor High Street we visited on our mini break?

Did a meteorite strike earth dusted with his DNA?

I love to hear him laugh like a baby in an online clip.

I love to hear him philosophise like a wise old man.

I’m not stupid. I know there’s disapproval.

It’s an effort to distract myself as I wait

for the door to knock, especially at midnight

when they come back with their voices.

What do you mean you keep your son in a jar?

They say, You can’t keep a son in a jar.

He’s too old. You don’t even have a son.

You don’t have anything. You’re like

those characters in movies

who are secretly dead. How long

do you think you can keep this up?

Why are you lying?

What have you done?

Tamara Evans is from South Wales. Her poems have appeared in Poetry Wales, Ink Sweat and Tears (nominated pick of the month) and The Alchemy Spoon and been selected for the forthcoming Black Cat Poetry Press Turning Points anthology. She lives in Sussex.

Tamara gave us this comment about her poem:

I was watching footage of an octopus removing the lid of a jar from the inside, and I found myself wondering (as you do) what would happen if you put a person in a jar? What if the person was your child? I had in mind traditional horror stories, where everyday details co-exist with something much creepier. The poem touches on painful themes, but I enjoyed creating the narrator’s matter-of-fact voice as they share their bizarre account.