The producers decided things were getting slow
so I caught you with Arabella at the charity regatta,
delivered a flute of strawberry champagne
to your blazer, a slap to her fine-boned cheek.
It took four takes to get it red enough.

Later they rebuilt our living room in a studio,
no detail spared, so they could light it perfectly
as I sobbed into a silk scarf you’d given me,
looking back on the Christmas special
when we first got together, which was edited in

with sad music, the slow motion laughter
of our former selves. My figure became small
in the centre of the shot as the camera crept out,
gaze lingering on every piece of furniture
as if it wanted to remember.

 

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Suzannah Evans lives in Sheffield and her pamphlet Confusion Species was a winner in the 2011/12 Poetry Business Competition, chosen by Carol Ann Duffy. She has published in magazines including The Rialto, Magma, and The North. In 2014 she was one of Aldeburgh Poetry Festival’s ‘New Voices’.
www.suzannahevans.wordpress.com | @suzannahevans