Salt Slow

by Julia Armfield

it’s hard to remember your ribs connect to your backbone until the chill in your chest reaches around for your spine —

My Mother’s skin stretches over the bones of her face like gloss paint poured from a palette.

In the spaces between Mass and classes, we talk long, indulgent circles of self-hatred. It is Girl Language – a cosy bonding rite. We are all convinced we are too fat, too short, too ugly; competing for each title with Olympic fervour, every grievance made to top what came before.

come to love each other for all that we can find to hate.

When I was twenty-seven, my Sleep stepped out of me like a passenger from a train carriage,

whether it was trying to talk to me and I was just too preoccupied by its silence to hear,

like the sensation of looking for your shadow on the ground in front of you only to realise that it was midday.

My Father said a town was only as interesting as its bad apples and only as safe as its lunatics.

The moon, I felt, was not yet full enough to excuse this kind of behaviour,

She had lain there confused, dead man in her bed. Had realised that there could be no way of loving sensibly if every morning started with the relief of finding him still alive.