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They Take Turns by Tom Vaux

Tom Vaux is a writer and poet based in London.



THEY TAKE TURNS

It isn’t spit it’s breath

sets off the mouth cloth not waving but to burr

and thrum in the choking season, in the blue on blue

whooped insistence, this implied ‘herewith’

and sibilate formality of fumes and Behemoth

needing you and she to cease this kind of being here

please. Though you wheeze and whatever they’d prefer

she’s here for the tilth.

Throw what she holds and share what is beneath her eyes,

its spit and breath. Why be afraid of wetlands

or unget desire for sighs and inspiration secondhand?

‘Fasten it like a bow.’ Suck it in and blow

it out. What it is is no disguise.

This made itself a folding face for two.

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©2018 The Oxford School of Poetry

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