Laura McKee

Mother earth lets the sun go down on her

O end of days
you are coming for me
but I as a mum
have been to Iceland
and gathered in ice cream

O end of days
you are coming for anyone
with the requisite body
you won’t discriminate
in your lust for flesh and blood

O end of days
I will watch out
as you eat me out
in the fields of skippers
I lick the stick clean

Laura McKee’s first pamphlet ‘take care of your hooves darling’ was published by Against the Grain Press in 2023. As a first generation student she has recently attained an MA with Distinction with The Poetry School and Newcastle University. Her first (officially!) queer poem was recently published in fourteen poems, and she has work forthcoming in Under the Radar (Nine Arches Press).

Laura wrote the following about her poem:

This poem makes Earth the speaker in the context of climate change. The title plays on Elton John's ‘Don't let the sun go down on me’.  The Earth being hot climatically is represented as feeling ‘hot’ sexually. The poem personifies ‘Mother Earth’ as a mum who has been to Iceland for ice cream to cope with the heat. The sun going down on her represents cunnilingus but clearly also the end of the Earth. She is enjoying these last moments, with butterflies, in a field, going out with a bang, or something close, as it were.