A Poem by Alice Stainer

The Shenanigans

I remember she wore soft, blue shorts,
the echo of that Cornish sky.
I remember the air quivering with heat,
the wasp that knew best.
I remember her mother’s desperate voice
raking the garden,
“Bridget! Bridget!”
Would she go back? Could she?
I remember the bamboo thicket
that beguiled us all,
the light touch of its leaves,
the smother of its shade.

But now, I can’t see past
those chinks of darkness
between slender, shivering stems.

I don’t remember what she took,
but I know
she never gave it back.

Alice Stainer teaches English Literature on a visiting student programme in Oxford. Her work appears in Atrium, Ice Floe Press, Iamb, Dust, The Storms, and Ink, Sweat and Tears, amongst other places, and has been nominated for Best of the Net, the Pushcart Prize and the Forward Prize. Her debut pamphlet will be published later this year as a winner of the Live Canon competition. Find her on X @AliceStainer.