Lessons in Gravity: By Contrast My Alcove

By Tom Branfoot

is teeming
with microplastics
chewing on hops
eyes hooded like monks
brewing a recipe
that never alters
in a structure
that never alters
like lead
sickly to lick
with a peasant tongue
a crone tongue
upright as an icon
everything has been
said about time
except that it unfurls
like spores of lead
under a sycamore
older than serfdom
I wonder what monks
do for fun
the grass looks fake
in the almshouse
I want to chew
on something gross
to digest power
into bitesize chunks
and lock myself
away for as long
as it takes to drive
reparations
down the M1
tell me something
fun now
something intractable

About Tom Branfoot

Tom Branfoot is a poet and writer from Bradford. He was awarded the New Poets Prize 2022. His writing has been published in Washington Square Review, The Babel Tower Notice Board, Murmur, and other publications. Tom’s debut pamphlet I’ll Splinter (2021) is published by Pariah Press. 

Lessons in Gravity

Poems from Museum of the Home by The Young Poets Collective. Edited by Anthony Anaxagorou. Get a copy of the anthology from our shop