I’ve seen mounds of bacon and sausage 
and heard crazy claims for Sharia law
how a hijab is an existential threat to a full English

I’ve seen plumbers come and go
stuttering stopcocks, warped u-bends
and a Biblical plague of frogs

I’ve heard lies repeated until they become truth
and seen dementia peddled as alpha male
I aced it…so smart, so smart

I’ve tasted the bitterness of cheers
at the drowning of a terrified child 
and chants of sink the boats, sink the boats

I’ve seen greed 
accrue more wealth than it could possibly use
in a hundred wealthy lifetimes
yet still point to incomers as the cause
of our decline

and just when I’d lost the will 
to fight this malignancy
my iPhone pings
and there, smiling,
Andy Burnham.

Rachel Davies is widely published in journals and anthologies and recently the Hippocrates Prize, 2024. Her debut pamphlet was Every Day I Promise Myself 4Word Press, 2020); her joint collection with Hilary Robinson, An Altogether Different Place (Beautiful Dragons Press, 2024) explores aspects of living with and caring for a loved one with dementia.

Poetry submissions to [email protected]