Tainted Love
 
I ate the hoard of magic mushrooms
offered to me by a gothic rock guy.
I laughed all evening at his TV screen,
he believed a mug of tea had got between us.

Giggling through the streets of Leeds
I came home to find a priest sitting on my bed.
I wasn’t hallucinating, my roommate
was hosting a Christian Union meeting.
 
For months after, I would wake in the dark
shaking as if the devil were rattling the end of my bed.


 
Parentheses
 
Boarding school was a depot
for left luggage and lost property.
 
I didn’t live there.
 
My suitcase
was placed in a numbered locker,
forgotten for years
until I redeemed its ticket
at the counter.

Hélène Demetriades

If you have any thoughts on these poems,  Hélène Demetriades would be pleased to hear them.