JENNY WALKER – NORTH EAST

 

 

SIMON SAYS

 

He stood against a white background

as wide and high as the room itself

and spoke to us, pausing to sip

from the slim glass bottle on the stand

with a quick tilt, or stroke his thumb along

the edge of the plastic folder, slippery

with his poems, slipped into see-through

wallets we longed to ask him about –

were they from Works, or another major

stationary retailer? And the sticky pink

tabs peeking up, were they bought

from a Smiths like the one down the road?

He told us he wrote on graph-paper,

but never after 1pm or in the lounge;

and once he typed a poem onto hotmail

though he sees that as an aberration,

probably. The attentive among us

jotted it down anyway and a plucky

fellow in the front row asked him

whether he was partial to feta or brie?

It was only when he answered camembert

that I noticed his rubber-soled shoes

leaving the carpet, lifting up into the air

like winged sandals or holy slippers

and hovering there as I raised my hand.