"Circulaire" by Bex Hainsworth

La Rochelle, France

It’s been ten years since I sat in the dust by the side

of a dirt road, dry grass prickling my legs. Lonely girl,

acting out a tragedy no one else was watching.

It was a little world of red roof slates, silver oyster shells,

and grey barnacle rust clinging to harbour walls.

A desert of blackboard shavings, tourist debris.

Now, outside our cabin, the sky is heavy with thunder,

cut through with lightning like a dome of black marble.

I am standing by the wooden wash basins, surrounded

by crisp spider carrion, clutching my phone like a flare.

Not quite star-crossed: our meeting was a technological accident.

No constellations, only data and algorithms. Our North Star

was a screen glowing in the dark, reaching across a city.

You are a person of open spaces, and you were waiting for me

at the end of the dirt road. For the first time in a decade,

I can breathe in infinitely, and my phone begins to ring.

Bex Hainsworth (she/her) is a poet and teacher based in Leicester, UK. She won the Collection HQ Prize as part of the East Riding Festival of Words and her work has appeared or is forthcoming in The Coachella Review, Ethel Zine, Atrium, Acropolis Journal, and Brave Voices Magazine. Find her on Twitter @PoetBex.