The red juice incarcerated her;
stained fingertips were her judge;
her lips dribbled with pomegranate seeds,
the jury delivering its guilty verdict.
My face plastered across bus shelter glass,
on Underground walls illustrating escalator climbs,
spread over office-block windows…
I can’t leave home without being chased by photo opportunists:
newspaper paparazzi, tourists, school children wanting a selfie.
I’d rather be an owl,
bound,
on my own,
inside a cave.
Claire Smith writes poetry about other worlds. Her work has most recently appeared in Penumbric Speculative Fiction Magazine, Spectral Realms, and Tales from the Moonlit Path. She lives in Gloucestershire, UK, with her husband and Ishtar, their very spoilt Tonkinese cat.
