Julia Webb

I was pigeon holing the second infection

and you were standing behind me

your hand on the small of my back

and your other hand holding an umbrella

above the two of us

impossible not to see an umbrella

now we have spoken of it though it was

probably a parasol now I come to think of it

because it was white with gold fringes

and you rarely see fringes on an umbrella

and I was stepping outside of my body

without even meaning to

not hovering above but standing side

by side but I was also in my body

and there was a hollow at my centre

that the other me had stepped out from

and I might have had a fever

though I doubt it because my temperature

is always on the low side almost as if

my body has given up the ghost already

a palm reader once told me that when

you lose the moon on your thumb nails

you will be dead so now each day

I watch my thumbs and worry

if I was a TV I would be stuck on mute

but if I was a radio I would choose static

or one of those spooky numbers stations

sometimes I feel like a haunted building

all my lights flickering

or perhaps a disused underground station

no arrivals or departures

except for a handful of spiders and rats

Julia Webb is based in Norwich, UK where she runs online poetry courses and is an editor for Lighthouse. In 2016 her poem "Sisters' was highly commended in the Forward Prize. her third collection The Telling was published by Nine Arches Press in May 2022.