A Poem by Louise Peterkin

Aiden Arrives

four days after you put the money in his account
for the off-peak fare and the Ipswich bus, armed
with a big bouquet of bugger all, a vintage bottle
of nothing, just a clear plastic bag with clean
boxers, some Lynx in it. You open the door,
he says, ‘Christ, you look shattered, thought
you did jack shit but write all day.’ Still, you let him
bundle you like laundry at the bottom of the stairs,
take you right there up against the wall, your legs
sticking out in semaphore angles until you can
negotiate them to a bind around his waist,
the buckle of his loosened belt whipping the back
of your calves. This is no dream! This is really
happening! That line from Rosemary’s Baby
comes to mind often: last time, in the supermarket
as you careered your trolley towards the man
who went left when you went left, who went right
when you went right: a protracted do-si-do
until your face began to smoulder. And once
with an older guy when you worked in the bank –
you filled out a form on his behalf, opted for The Hague
as a city in Germany. His disgust. His polite disgust.
Aiden tugs your hair, jolts you back to the present –
it’s as if you’ve just come to on a pendulum ride
you don’t remember queuing for. Then you think
again of Gentleman Hague, his soft dismay,
his Turin Shroud face imprinting upon your brain
with every rhythmic thrust and you try to get purchase,
a foothold, a start up on the way to climax, to finally
see it through to the Grand Finale, la petite mort,
the big Yodel-ay-Eee-Ooooo but by then it’s too late,
it’s been and gone and done and he shudders
to a halt like a train inside you.

Louise Peterkin is a poet and editor from Edinburgh. She is a recipient of a New Writers Award from the Scottish Book Trust. She has had poems featured in publications including The Dark Horse, Finished Creatures, Magma, The North, and The Scotsman and she has been longlisted for the National Poetry Competition. Along with Rob A. Mackenzie, she was co-editor of Spark: Poetry and Art Inspired by the Novels of Muriel Spark and she is a poetry editor for The Interpreter's House. Her first poetry collection, The Night Jar, was published by Salt in 2020. She is currently working towards a second collection.