Julia Webb

In 1997 my future was a Get Well Soon balloon

I hung it in the hallway
well not the hallway exactly
but that space between
one room and another
where the stairs begin
and when I say I hung it
what I mean is I let it go
and it floated up into the dead
space of the stairwell
where nobody could reach it
and it stayed there for weeks
reminding us of sickness
until it gradually began
to deflate and inch its way
back down until I could
recapture it and throw it away
and by throw it away I don’t
mean put it in the bin because
its silvery indestructibility
made me feel guilty
so I cut it open with scissors
and my son and I used it
for making a collage enjoying
its shiny foil more in pieces
than we had done when it was
a Get Well Soon balloon

Julia Webb is a writer and collage artist living in Norwich. She is a poetry editor for Lighthouse and a freelance poetry tutor, reviewer and mentor. She has two collections with Nine Arches Press: Bird Sisters (2016) and Threat (2019). Her third collection The Telling came out with Nine Arches in May 2022.