Tag Archives: Sallyanne Rock

How You Will Identify My Body – by Sallyanne Rock

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Spare key engraved across right palm
Fingerprints on each side of jaw    Look at me when I’m talking to you
Slight spinal curvature indicating bowed head
Tan line on the ring finger of the wrong hand
Fun-house mirror under each eyelid
Scar behind left ear    They’ll kill you if you tell
Small holes in ventricles consistent with piercing
Alternative names inscribed on the soles of the feet
Indent of hooks around both clavicles
Blunt force injury to the startle reflex    He told me to do it
Knee caps with imprint of hymn book
A birthmark in the shape of a birthmark.

 

 

 

Sallyanne Rock is an emerging poet living in Worcestershire, UK. She has been published in various places online and in print, and can often be found tweeting @sallrockspoetry

If You Hold It To Your Ear – by Sallyanne Rock

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Harold sits in his high-backed chair,
tips shells into his lap,
sprinkles the dayroom carpet with sand.

He lifts the tiger cowrie to his ear,
turns down his hearing aid to recall
the taptaptap of Dad’s pipe on the table,
Mom’s pastry-pin roll and thrap,
the budgie’s serenade to a swinging mirror.

He listens to the wentletrap,
makes out a Wurlitzer, the lift and fall
of Dora’s heels on sprung herringbone.
Smiles as she belts out Billie
over the thump of the twin tub,
the button tin rattle saving
his Sunday shirt from a ragbag fate.

Thumbing the ridges of an upturned oyster,
Harold tries to scoop out sounds
of hand-smoothed sheets,
the bedside monitor chirrup,
a last breeze of breath.

He scrapes the shells
back into their box,
clicks the catch
turns up his hearing aid.
Lets the tide rush in.

 

 
Sallyanne Rock is an emerging poet living in Worcestershire, UK. She has been published in various places online and in print, and can often be found tweeting @sallrockspoetry