SK Grout

Self Portrait as Sentimental Star

Today strikes out
                                    with light so intense
                                                                        I ready sunglasses, sunscreen and baseball cap.
 
I let the peppermint tea steep too long,
                                                            accept the consequences, wince through bitter sips.
 
Time wants to be an emotional star sighing, dancing and growing hay.
 
On the street outside my flat, the argument between a group of men lingers against the
echoing brick
                        longer than I can see their battling bodies.
 
What if I truly believe the end will brighten this right now?
 
The mixtape on repeat allows me to manage
                                                                        the siege within my skirling brain.
A bell invokes the question.
 
And can the sentimental museum
                                                            reply in sonorous terms, that
 
I exist in this L I M I T L E S S and still
                                                lock myself inside a cage
                                                                                    I have agreed to construct.
 
Galaxies return the sparkling in the mail.
 
Here is a moment prepared with your face
                                                            so inevitably, I stand in its shadow.

Biography

SK Grout grew up in Aotearoa/New Zealand, has lived in Germany and now splits her time as best she can between London and Auckland. She is the author of the micro chapbook “to be female is to be interrogated” (2018, the poetry annals). She holds a post-graduate degree in creative writing from City, University of London and is a Feedback Editor for Tinderbox Poetry. Her work also appears in Crannóg, Landfall, trampset, Banshee Lit, Parentheses Journal, Barren Magazine and elsewhere. More information here: https://skgroutpoetry.wixsite.com/poetr

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