Put the kettle on
if you can afford it.
Put the world to rights
in an unlit room.
Talk it out between
a candle or two.
After you’ve showered
in the rain, layer up
in clothes ingrained
with damp and despair.
Say that little prayer.
Put the kettle on
but invest in a new one,
one that boils quicker:
economically efficient.
Think of the pennies
you’ll save
ignore the pounds you owe:
this, my friend, is Britain –
a brew will solve it all.
Forget the cost of living,
you’ll be lucky to survive
but put the kettle on
and keep those tea bags piling high.

Louise Machen is a Mancunian poet and a graduate of The Centre for New Writing at The University of Manchester. Her poetry likes to explore the complicated relationships between people and the world. Her work has most recently appeared in Dreich, Acropolis Journal and Sound and Vision – an Anthology from Black Bough Poetry. She has an upcoming collaborative pamphlet, The Words of Others are All We Have (2024), with Hedgehog Press.

Poetry submissions to [email protected]