Paul

From a walled garden and some shepherds’ huts,
a huge, tri-peaked white zeppelin would come
into view. Then Paul Hollywood would close in
across the lawn, his silver quiff cutting

the air like a fin. A crisp oxford shirt
meant to make his eyes pop—a velvety navy
just across the color wheel from his tan.
Mary dispensed praise prudently, as if

pressing a toffee into your palm. But
Paul Hollywood can entwine seven strands
of dough into an ornamental wreath
with the dexterity of a concert pianist.

The rest of the time, he will handle your
bread like airport security. He flips
it upside down, knocks on its bottom,
interrogates it with sausage fingers.

When he is done, he dusts his hands and sheaths
them in his denim carapace. Sometimes we
observed Paul from afar, smoking alone
near the meadows’ edge, pacing like a bull.

From Inside the world of “The Great British Bake Off”.

Supporting England

England is by many
objective measures
a terrible country
ruled by terrible people
with a terrible past
and a terrifying future,

and I support England.
None of my forebears
were born in England,

and I support England.
When I watch the news
or follow England games abroad
or read about politics
I often feel utterly
disconnected from this country,

and I support England.
It was an Englishman
who snarled at me
on the street last month
while I was taking
my daughter to nursery:
Fuck off Chinaman,
take your Covid patient with you.

Nevertheless, I support England.

The supermarket is selling
something called “meatless burgers”.
There are women on Match of the Day.
You hear vague noises about “defunding the police”.
You suspect, on some sinister level,
that something you love is being taken away
And so amid this landscape
of shifting plates and cultural norms,
you have a choice: you can get with the programme
or you can stand your ground and fight.

I am not one of you
and you are not one of us.
But for this month,
for these 90 minutes,
for these sunlit days in June and July,
let’s pretend we are.

Let’s build a house together
and watch it fall.
Let’s pick apart Southgate’s 3-4-3
and debate the merits of Jack Grealish.
Let’s elate and commiserate together.
The past is the past
and the future is the future.

From My cross to bear, June 2021.

Turned to glass

The bodies in the container
partially thawed, moved,
and then froze again

— stuck to the capsule
like a child’s tongue
to a cold lamp post.

Eventually the bodies
had to be thawed to unstick,
re-frozen and put back in.

Cracks appeared,
cutting through the skin
and subcutaneous fat,

all the way down
to the body wall or
muscle surface beneath.

The organs were cracked.
The spinal cord was snapped
and the heart — was fractured.

(From Horror Stories of Cryonics)

Over-winterers

A new accent

the oo in goose

has begun
to take shape

the you in few

in English
as spoken

the oh in goat

in Antarctica.

and the ee
in the last syllable

in happy.

(From How Scientists Working in Antarctica Inadvertently Developed a New Accent)

Read my heel

Most of us, she says,
walk by stepping into the
space in front. I want
you to think about walking
out of the space behind you.

(From How I learned to walk properly)

The last ten days of Ramadan

I never said a proper goodbye
to the city where I grew up.

On the second day
I phoned my cousins.
We spoke about cancelled exams
and pilgrims stuck in Mecca.

By day four
my cousin could barely speak;
the family were all on the ground floor,
she was too afraid to shower.

A trousseau for a bride,
red slippery glittery tobes,
perfumes, dainty sandals.
Kilos of pistachios,
bags of sugared almonds,
boxes of Turkish delight –
all this would be looted.

The sky over Khartoum
was lit with savage fire,
smoke billowing at dawn.

On Eid day
I dragged myself to the mosque.
I hugged other women and cried.

Eid mubarak.

This time, they didn’t pick up.

(From 5 Sudanese writers on the country’s nightmare conflict)

Goal

It travelled slowly,
a lovely orangey-white orb,
hanging there in the sallow evening air
as necks were craned, with time to relish
the moment of stillness
before the ball rustled the netting
and the stands erupted, lost in their own noise
for perhaps the only time all afternoon.

(From Saka confirms status as England’s greatest hope)

Defiance

Friends, with me everything is okay.
Cuts on the head, eyebrow dissected,
concussion, broken nose suspected.

I, like millions of other Ukrainians,
would like to have a normal measure of power.
I told them to go fuck themselves.

(From The Abuse of Ukraine’s Best-Known Poet)

Left behind

A Jimmy Choo
Cinderella shoe.
A Pomsky
dog called Beyoncé.
An ice-cream cart,
a birth chart
and tarot reading.
A pair of six-foot angel wings.

A Roland drum kit,
an Angora rabbit
called Thumper, an Islamic
marriage certificate.
The bride’s pet lovebirds, Will and Kate,
which she was supposed to take
to the ceremony.
A GT V8 Bentley
convertible.
A huge inflatable
unicorn pool float,
a banana boat.
A telescope.

A DJI Phantom drone
and a coin collection started nine decades ago.

(From dogs to drones)

#PinkGlowPineapple

I will always remember the day I first
tasted a borojo in a Costa Rican orchard
near the Panama border. The borojo
tasted like mulled wine and looked like
a baseball that someone had buried underground
for two hundred years; its texture
I can only compare to triple-crème Brie.

I dream of monstera deliciosa:
the fruit that looks like an ogre’s bunion
and smells like strawberry-guava pudding.
Or diospyros nigra, the black sapote,
which tastes like licking date paste off a stone.

This is not a bubblegum pink
nor is it a sultry magenta
or a coy blush. The exact hue
of Del Monte’s pineapple is more
of a peony-cantaloupe blend —
a color I’ve seen on polo shirts
in Cape Cod and on the lips of actresses
in midcentury Douglas Sirk films.
I’d call it Teenage Shrimp.

Each pineapple arrives with a gold-sealed
certificate of authenticity
congratulating the recipient
on obtaining this royal delicacy
and a helpful reminder
to tag #PinkGlowPineapple
and watch the likes pour in.

(From Instagram Fruit)