Two Poems by Lisa Kelly

A Vagina is not a Crab, Mr Tumble

“scuttling quickly sideways”
as your index fingers and thumbs
form an open upside-down triangle
crabbing left to right across the screen
as you pinch-release, pinch-release.
No, a vagina is not a crab, Mr Tumble.
Don’t trip on the carapace over
a precipice. Do you see
what I’m signing Mr Tumble?
O, it’s a hard and confusing space,
and all this crabbiness is just so much
fannying around, Mr Tumble –
all those purists with their claws out,
and all those decapods with their fingers
in every rockpool, come rain
or shiny shell, come rain or shiny
nail, not, exactly, green, nor bronze –
nor pink, nor brown, nor black, nor purple.
Shall we just say flesh-coloured Mr Tumble?
Or chitin-coloured or even keratin-coloured?
At a pinch, we can gloss over this episode
but crabs are in a pinch Mr Tumble.
Not the ones picked out by fingernails,
a nit comb or tweezers, but the crabs
in fresh water that are being killed off
by pesticides, agricultural runoff
and sewage, Mr Tumble, so a quarter
of all freshwater species are at risk of
extinction. Now, fresh water or just
clean water is the best way to wash
a vagina, Mr Tumble. Douches disrupt
the natural balance of bacteria, Mr Tumble,
within the vaginal flora, the prospect of which
might cause a vagina to scuttle quickly sideways,
a bit like a crab, which since you didn’t ask
is signed by both hands forming a pincer shape
with thumbs touching forefingers
as they gently open and close to show
a crab’s claws in action – not a vagina,
Mr Tumble, definitely not a vagina.

Orientation

And when the storm came, did you name it?
Did you give it a name that gave you authority
over it? Did you say its name out loud and curse it?
Did you wish for it to disappear into the night
Like a guest that had outstayed its welcome,
Drunk the last of the good wine, upset the bottle
So it rolled off the table and crashed onto the floor
Sending glass shards flying? Did you already think
About clearing up before it was even a whisper
Of conversation? Did you turn the lights down
And pretend you were not at home? Did you sink
To the floor, pull the blanket over your head?

Or when the storm came, did you sense a change
In the atmosphere – a quickening like the first kick,
A change in the quality of light, a phosphorescence,
An iridescence, the way the leaf on the twig spun
In a frenzy? Did you feel the urge to strip off shoes
And socks, to open every door in the house, to run
Outside with your mouth open and your chin tilted
To the bruised sky and wait for the fat droplets to
Fill your dry throat and the splash of love wash
Your face, rearrange your thoughts? Did you open
your arms, let the silk of your dress cling to your
body like a second skin? Did you lie down on
what was hard cracked earth and feel it soften
into mud and roll, and roll until you were storm?

Lisa Kelly’s second collection, The House of the Interpreter (Carcanet), was a PBS Summer 2023 Recommendation. She was shortlisted for the 2024 Forward Prize for Best Single Poem and is an AHRC-funded PhD researcher at the University of Birmingham, exploring the climate crisis through British Sign Language.