"Clay Women" by Courtenay Schembri Gray

Pressed within milk-bottle glass,

I am the coarse rock to man.

My holes are bitty with pilled glitter.

I cook breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

Every tawny morning,

a corpse with a dab hand;

me the wife, opens the cans.

Sausage and beans in a pool

of tomato syrup, red like chilli oil.

He scarfs it down.

Then comes a blister.

I am the sickness; the pus-rich boil.

Born and raised in the North of England, Courtenay Schembri Gray reared her head as a budding poet with a penchant for the macabre. After finding a kinship in the rich verse of Sylvia Plath, Courtenay has amassed a grand amount of publishing credits. Her poetry collection, The Maggot on Maple Street, was published by Anxiety Press in 2023. Twitter: @courtenaywrites WordPress blog: www.courtenayscorner.com