Ella Frears

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Capability Frears

 

cast your eyes
like dice
across this little townscape.

did you ever
see such hot and rocky crag?

when the wind hits the scrub
all wild & whatever
it’s like we never
even
discovered iron.

don’t you think when the sea gets all
creased,
all furrowed like that,
it’s the absolute spit
of daddy’s brow?

during a brief
fatalistic period
I leapt off that rock
and into the ocean
right
at the raging apex
of a storm

get this – the water literally
refused to drown me.

ever since
I’ve been blessed
with a hot bod
smooth as sea-glass,
a saline wit.

do you like
undergrowth?
whose name
did you whisper
into the abandoned mineshaft?

fate gets
real buttery
this close to a cow. hey!

night came out of nowhere!

just look at those sleepy
cobbles!

isn’t our firmament
well hung?

 

Ella Frears is a poet based in London. Her debut collection, Shine, Darling (Offord Road Books, 2020) was a Poetry Book Society recommendation and was shortlisted for both the TS Eliot Prize for Poetry 2020 and the Forward Prize for Best First Collection.

The above piece appears in the August/September 2020 issue of The London Magazine.

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