Guest Poem by Gina Wilson

Gina Wilson began by writing novels for teenagers (Faber), also picture book texts (Walker Books), and poems for children (Jim-Jam Pyjamas, Cape, 1990) but, after training as a psychotherapist in the mid '90s, she focussed on adult poetry. She has been published in many magazines and journals, and won prizes and shortlistings in many competitions. Her pamphlets are Scissors, Paper, Stone (HappenStance, 2010) and It Was and It Wasn't (Mariscat, 2017), which was shortlisted in the Michael Marks Poetry Pamphlet Awards, 2018.

Somewhere to Live

I like the way this privet
stands its ground,
the waist-high lavender,
crazy paving,
tubs.

These winter trees, that never touch,
remind me of Mother and the Aunts,
how, in the end, I felt their twigs,
like children’s fingers,
tug.

I want to join again with buds, bees,
swing upside down with apples,
wave at grass – watch how it weaves itself
like straw,
ready to catch me
if I fall.