Phoebe Gilmore is a South London based writer from Devon.
She will be receiving her MA in Creative and Life Writing in 2025. Phoebe runs an open mic and poetry reading night in the heart of New Cross called Safeword.
She is a monthly contributor to Smiths Magazine and her work has been published with The Shore, GoldDust, and EGG+FROG Magazine.
@phoebpix
Meadowlands
My arms were too big – even as a child I knew.
Dad squeaked an inflatable band
up my skin, I felt orange and ridiculous,
its seam – where it began and ended – dug
into my topsoil freckles,
I looked at his toenail-less feet, his big toe a knuckle of pink garlic
his leg hair – black patterns quick drying rivulets
his breath around me, my mind
at the bottom of the pool –a plaster
and its wisp of blood.
Ready? He said, sending my limbs to the water – a deliverance
like a punch to the nose
I kissed the wrong boy at a party
stole money from Mum
slipped young hands under the belt of a teacher
I was the felt of a purse beaten by pennies
It was late
I phoned Dad
I was not a good girl
my limbs too long, the water too shallow and wide.
I’m with all the grown men in the corn
the evening a soft bite mark
out here in the sticks
we don’t do family trees
we do family pylons
single child single parent
waving at each other
miles of fields plaited
tightly between them
Every Three Years
A letter comes
I arrive, on time, lie back,
make numbers out of air, particles
bubbling, twenty, sixty, eighteen,
a woman scrapes inside me, her mother
tongue – statistics, Scotland & cigarettes,
my body, a long jump, down
a tunnel, inside a pyramid, minutes measured,
unbearable door frame, think hard,
I tell myself, of pointless conversations, pockets of sounds, belonging
to sunbathing strangers, drifting off, slowly peeling
a sleep, so long, so soft, the fisherman’s line, his breath, flung out into August fuzz, to
float, to rest, a stretch of blue
Fuzz, to float, to rest, a stretch of blue
a sleep, so long, so soft, the fisherman’s line, his breath, flung out into August,
to sunbathing strangers, drifting off, slowly peeling
I tell myself, of pointless conversations, pockets of sounds, belonging
unbearable door frame, think hard,
a tunnel, inside a pyramid, minutes measured,
my body, a long jump down
tongue – statistics, Scotland & cigarettes,
a woman scrapes inside me, her mother
bubbling, twenty, sixty, eighteen,
make numbers out of air, particles
I arrive, on time, lie back,
a letter comes
Double Cleanse
God is wearing a Lululemon two piece
telling me it is vital I double cleanse
so I wash my body twice – once out
side then inside – this is not what god meant
To worship this way is to swallow
a sundried elephant feet first
I want to be a benevolent celery
stick not a bottom heavy pint
glass of old water touched only in the dark
I have a morning routine – a wet sleeve
all my money gone on hand painted side
plates for detoxing blueberries that wash
through me as though these guts
are not worth their time
Get ready with me to do something
drastic – attempt murder
before my thirtieth birthday
because I’ve said yes
too many times
Mother’s Belief
I was a car sick kid. Radio stations fizzing up
and down my throat. Being driven home. Snuffed windows. Headlit hedges like green
static. To stop the sickness, watch the moon – you told me. I watched its slow cow
head lift gently, large, and heavy blinking, round its bend came a strange flame
attached to a chocolate coin kind of metal. Look the moon – I told you.