Susannah Hart

Fragmentary interior with RFK

New Rorschach stains on the ceiling. The guilt of the cistern, brown evidence of slippage

Back door rug curling away from the cloistered inside

Video flashback 1: Crowded hotel ballroom, posters, celebrations, tired man on stage

Splinter in the thumb from the garden rake nearly out, a black line getting closer to the skin

Empty toilet roll waiting — another mouth, another hollow

Dream 1: Queuing to buy bread. Every time I wake I know I need to get back into the queue. The bread looks delicious.

Under each cushion, beer bottle tops like new minted coins, magpie treasury

Under the floorboards, the mice

Dream 2: Mopping the kitchen floor but something is wrong with the mop. Something is wrong with the mop. I must change mops.

Dishwasher churns and whirrs, revving up to a beeping finish

Video flashback 2: Young man in shirtsleeves, legs crossed, leaning back in his chair, talking on the phone

No mice in the traps

Broken things: plug on the Dustbuster, handle on the wine fridge, Best Dad in the World mug, extension lead, USB cable, red garden trug

Rubber gloves in each bathroom, yellow puppets, clown fingers, ghost maids

Video flashback 3: Children brightly clothed running across a lawn to their fathers getting out of a helicopter

Tower of boxes, delivery cadavers, too big to bury

Duvet thrown back, revealing loose earplugs like dropped Jelly Tots

Dream 3: On the train without a mask. No one has mouths. All eyes are shuttered. No one wants to see my ticket.

PlayStation chuntering, always rebooting, strange lights from within

Old batteries shed like bullet casings, slugs of dead electricity

Vindictive cutlery, spillikins in the drawer

Video flashback 4: Man sprawled on the floor, looking puzzled, right arm flung back

Broken mop, end pieces lying sharp and useless

Susannah Hart is a London-based poet who's been widely published in magazines and online. She is on the board of Magma Poetry and a trustee of Poetry in Aldeburgh. Susannah's first collection Out of True won the 2018 Live Canon First Collection Prize, and her poem 'Reading the Safeguarding and Child Protection Policy' won the 2019 National Poetry Competition.

Susannah wrote the following about her poem:

This poem was written during one of the UK Covid lockdowns. It’s a record of an intense but disjointed set of experiences — domestic decay, TV shows, dreams — at a time when my whole life was contained within my home. The chaos of the household is interwoven with vivid scenes from a documentary about Bobby Kennedy and surreal dream memories. When I read it now, it brings back the strange intensity of that time, and the underlying sense of threat.