A Poem by Jacqueline Saphra

Tomorrow

Tuesday becomes elastic
like a shadow stretched under the sun

Wednesday buries itself
in laundry and fiscal responsibilities

Thursday mutters about hospitals
and feeds you seeds and sorrow

Concerning the remains of days
rabbits and hats come to mind

the jiggery-pokery trickery
of the temporal magician

When was your last test
who manages your memory

Weeks overflow
with arrivals and departures

of dear ones in sputters
of car and coffin

you chain yourself
to the dumbbell of your calendar

as certainties saunter by
without telling you

Your skin risks alien shapes
and unpredictable hairs

despite your dalliance
with oils and unguents

your marriage of convenience
to a pair of expensive tweezers

The months burst their buttons
despite all of life’s corsetry

and as for the years
well

we’ll have no more of those
long-limbed darlings

meandering from birthday 
to birthday

as if they have 
all the time in the world

Jacqueline Saphra, a prizewinning poet, agitator, teacher, and organiser, is the author of nine plays, five chapbooks and five poetry collections. Her second collection, All My Mad Mothers (Nine Arches Press), was shortlisted for the T. S. Eliot Prize. Her fifth, Velvel’s Violin, a Poetry Book Society Recommendation and Radio 4 Poetry Book of the month, was out from Nine Arches Press in July 2023. She teaches for The Poetry School and is a founder member of Poets for The Planet.