journal for new poetry
Ellora Sutton
Fatberg!
My favourite (only) fact about sewers: The Museum of London has in its collection a cross-section of the 2017 Whitechapel fatberg. It debuted in 2018 with a display called Fatberg! in its honour.
Today’s breakfast:
carrot cake French toast.
Anything can be French toast
if you forget about it long enough
and then soak it in egg and whole milk
and forget about it long enough.
O sweet cinnamon! O
vanilla extract! O sweet
risk of falling apart
in the murky butter O
spitting butter O dark
sequins of burn
O glamourous decomposition!
O sugary resurrection! O
custard! O sweet
falling apart on a
burning tongue!
My grandmother’s kitchen
is an arrangement
of sand-coloured tiles and
a table I could sleep on
like a meringue. I went through
a brief but intense obsession
with meringues after
my mother died.
Watching them bloom,
a PVA howl.
The cupboards are so
depressed and catacomb
with tins of butter beans,
my grandmother’s way
of saying I am prepared
to keep you alive to nourish you
through any nuclear catastrophe.
(I have a favourite hob, therefore I am.)
In Italy there is a museum
dedicated to the evolution
of mining lamps, from ancient
to modern day. I’ve never
been, but I would like to go.
What a shining archive!
What a blossoming boulevard!
What a charm bracelet
I will wear against my fear of flying
which is really a fear
of falling/dying/being alone.
I am a museum giftshop
selling postcards of other
more remarkable giftshops.
My favourite museums include:
- The Vagina Museum
- The Fan Museum
- The Mary Rose Museum
- The Roman Baths (Bath)
I went to a museum once
with a hip-length plait
in a glass case and I said
Mother? Mother?
my face a paled xerox
as in a train window,
a stream of censusness
and I the groping willow herb
or accountant
pretending to sleep
drooling on my girl-shoulder.
I enjoy baking
because I am
bad at it and
I need a space
to be bad.
Are mouth and mother etymologically
linked? I hope so. I hope so badly.
For the sake of this poem
Google does not exist.
No calculators allowed in the exam hall.
From The Vagina Museum
I learnt about Sheela Na Gigs
stretching open their stony vulvas
like the rubbery mouths
of Scooby-Doo monsters.
So toothed with calcified semen
the Devil evaporates in a terrified puff
of pre-cummy smoke. Vulvas
raw as purifying flame.
I wear one around my neck
on a black cord, an apotropaic gift
from my maternal aunt.
Mother. Mouth, as in: river.
River-mouth. River-mother.
Mouther. Mother. See also:
museum, mausoleum, mourn,
mucous, marrow, tomorrow, mourning.
See also: moth, motorway, to mourn.
A girl I knew at uni
slid into my Insta DMs
this morning to tell me I give
big Jurassic Park energy.
I don’t know what
that means exactly but
I am ready.
I am ready for something new.
To die again, freshly.
To make a souffle
and mean it.
Anything can be soft
if you are simply willing
to wait.
Yes, Mother –
I am ready.