Zelda Chappel

this time of year

they’re out pushing leaflets through the doors again

asking if we left our baby at St Peters if we know who did
and it gets me every time

I want to confess
I left my baby in a chapel too once
but she had already left me

on Skype we joke about time travel me six hours ahead and you
ask for no spoilers

so I tell you a have a new desk plant that I called her Callie
that there’s a delay on the line
and I can hear myself
and it’s strange

I ask if you’re coming back soon you don’t know
your aunt survives another season and no one thought she would

Zelda Chappel’s first full collection of poetry, The Girl in the Dog-tooth Coat, was published in 2015 by Bare Fiction Press. Her work has been published in a number of journals, magazines and anthologies both online and in print, including Butchers Dog, Lighthouse Journal, RAUM and Under the Radar.