A Poem by Rebecca Goss

Streaker

It’s late but not dark yet in Essex, so I can see my father
walk the garden path to her parents’ house, snapper in tow,
camera shoulder-slung, other hacks pissed off to see them
let in after a single knock (never underestimate the civic
bonding made in pubs) while I wait in the car in my Guides
uniform, knowing, before the nation knows, of her sprint across
the silky green of Lords. And this will be tomorrow’s news,
her cartwheel ahead of the policeman’s grasp, Botham’s easy
grin, all in black and white. My father now returned, overlooking
his seatbelt, notebook full of a family’s testimony, Berol pen
snug in the spiral. On top, glossy stills procured and peeled
from a heavy album, her early goodness captured at the nativity/
sports day/holiday abroad because we must see the girl prior to
her deviations. One more detour: the office with its smack
of pipe smoke and developer. Scattered newsprint five days deep.
Mugs I never drink from. Frenzy of telephones. So I idly spin
handles of the table football, wobble those tiny players
under glass, my father bashing typewriter keys in a two-fingered
dance, and at Wapping it’s been decided how much of her body
to grace the page – all of it – her firm, determined limbs there
when I wake, star of her spread legs upside down in my eyes
as the bus drives me through school gates to my waiting education.

Rebecca Goss is the author of four full-length collections, most recently Latch (Carcanet, 2023). Her work has been shortlisted for many awards including the Forward Prize for Best Collection. She is winner of the Sylvia Plath Prize 2022. She works as a poetry mentor, and is a Writing for Life Fellow with the Royal Literary Fund, in NHS Recovery Colleges. She is current Writer-in-Residence for CW+, the official charity of Chelsea and Westminster Hospital NHS Foundation Trust. Instagram @gosspoems