The Friday Poem: ‘Enhanced Interrogation’ by Nick Ascroft

A new poem by poet and top Scrabble player Nick Ascroft.

Enhanced Interrogation

I’d only just remembered what Rick Astley
called his other hit: ‘Together [heave]
Forever’. I’d intended to tell Ashleigh,
then when sneaking into Kate’s to thieve
some milk for Scrabble club that night, the song
was gurgling from her kitchen radio.
I wondered why I felt a hurt so strong
and so familiar. Shrugging – hey-de-ho,
that’s living: agony – but then it struck
me. My old Casio! The track it squawked
on demo mode, all tinny clank and cluck.
And just now in an Uber, tomahawked,
again. It’s haunting: ‘never [gah] to part’?
What never? Yes. The torture is the art.

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