berlin

FICTION/POETRY

3 Poems - Rosie Allabarton

Rosie Allabarton is an English writer who lives in Berlin. A graduate of Birkbeck's Creative Writing MA, she is currently working on her debut novel about the family unit and the strange things it does to us. When she's not writing, or trying to write, she likes to eat overpriced banana bread with black coffee. You can see more of Rosie's writing here.


Budapest

Made up for two

I intervene

taking blankets to the living room;

that grey area that grows

between us.

 

My dog bed

is wet through

from hot tea and

we clasp chairs close to our chests

like the children you

categorically don’t want

and I do.

 

We laugh, eyes

on the ground that is temporarily ours;

mine wet, my belly loud

and insincere, chest puffed out

and, catching myself,

I breathe out –

the sound a soft whistle through

gapped teeth. Mine.

 

On the other side

of the partition door

you Buda, me Pest,

your cough is a bark in the darkness

and later

(ear to wall)

I catch you calling out across the Danube.

 

Murder

There have only been waking states;

holding the morning back with my hands

holding the curtains closed

against thick light

that becomes so easily thin

and frayed at the edges.

It slips through my fingers,

clings to the particles of dust

that lurch through the air;

a crowd

grounded, small patches of joyful filth

making a home on my clothes and skin.

His top lip curls when he says my name and

standing too close he asks a question

he doesn't want an answer to,

the sound of his own voice pearls

in his cloth-ears

sodden with vowels.

The king of that unwanted morning

asks how I am and laughs

when I answer, laughs

before I'e even answered

and under the covers

dust under dust

I kill him nightly in my dreams.

 

horse

My hair was a crown and

I was a horse

as you walked past the house

and I galloped across the road.

Hooves against glass

I peered through the café window, only

to see us eating eggs

in the dark;

our smiles glowing over coffee,

butter that I thought was cheese and

across the years

that have passed.

It was silent inside and

I snorted.

The chairs were stacked high

on the tables that were islands

and menus fluttered like leaves

to the freshly washed floor.