Bryony Littlefair

Say when

I don’t really write about, like, war and stuff... I say to my friend, who has just asked me what I write about as he scans the kitchen cupboards for sugar. It’s not that I don’t care, obviously I care, it’s just that it’s not really my arena... My friend nods. Mmhmm. Uh-huh. He is a good listener. He asks me how much milk I’d like in my tea. Say when. When, I say, as the milk unfurls in the tea. But he keeps on pouring, as if he hasn’t heard. When! I say louder, but it’s like his body is locked in position, and the milk flows along the table now and plops coldly to the floor. My friend is frozen, jaw tight, eyes darting in panic. Stop it! Argh! What are you doing? We wrestle with the bottle. The milk pools and pools.

Bryony Littlefair is a poet, community centre worker and workshop facilitator living in London. Her pamphlet Giraffe won the Mslexia Pamphlet Prize in 2017 and is out now with Seren Books. She was shortlisted for the inaugural Rebecca Swift Foundation Women Poets’ Prize in 2018. Her poems have previously appeared in Ambit, The Rialto and The Moth.