A poem from Simone Kaho’s forthcoming collection HEAL!

Some of my mother’s bedtime stories live on in me

A fat cowboy ghost horse who flew, with the power of being unintentionally scary

Veni vidi vici – actions that cannot be undone

The girl who slows down time, so giants chasing her think she’s dead

The narrative says she is safe this way
But the little girl listening didn’t trust seeming dead would be enough

A pig or the wolf with a kazoo, making music starting with zee, either heading towards the

pigs’ house to eat them or escaping the wolf

The woman discombobulated in the washing machine

emerging and slapping her own ears

A worm in a stripy sock who’s allowed to eat apples

and no one is repulsed and cuts the worm out, or throws the apple away

The girl fighting priests

The girl fighting big cats

The girl with oil and flowers in her wounds

Giant worms living under the mountain, swimming beneath children in a boat, who are most grotesque before you know what they are, but need to be believed that they’re there

Vampires who smell you through walls at night

you smell the most like yourself to them

The most you ever will (which disarms you)

as they mangle your neck

as you try to stay yourself

And know if you’re alive or not
or your head has fallen forward
so the reader can’t see your face

 

HEAL! (Saufo`i Press) is published on 16 September.

The Friday Poem is edited by Chris Tse. Submissions are currently closed.