by Clare Fielder

Some days I forget
that you are not somewhere.
Not sitting in church.
Or washing fruit.
I’ve been sleeping again
in a bed that is mine,

not borrowed. The window
rattles in the frame and
clouds hurl themselves about.
There are floods somewhere,
hedges are underwater.
I am not underwater.
I am living in a place you
never imagined me.

I was away living my other life
the day they took handfuls
of the ashes that used to
be you and scattered them
on the surface of the grey sea.
Some days I forget you.
The rain is loud like waves
on shingle. In the garden
the flowers are bending and
bending, and not breaking.

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Clare Fielder writes poetry and fiction, and is interested in exploring the ways in which people are shaped by the places they inhabit. She studied writing at the University of East Anglia and recently received an MFA from Columbia University. She currently lives in London and is working on a novel.