What he said while we watched ‘Dunkirk’
Just boys really weren’t they / breaks your heart / just kids they were / look at them / kids / that looks slippery / have you fiddled with the brightness / yes you have / pass me the remote / that’s an accident waiting to happen / here come the Spitfires / you know Derek / yes you do / Derek / Derek from the Esso / Derek / his Uncle was a Spitfire pilot / Derek with the hose / will you look at those Spitfires / is it me or is it hot in here / have you touched the thermostat / look at them / just boys they were / breaks your heart / did you bleed that radiator / how the hell would you lift a thing like that / kids don’t know they’re born / with their fibre optical broadspeed and vegan / I’d like to see them cross the channel and keep their ruddy phones dry
Vanessa’s pamphlet On Long Loan was published by Live Canon in 2020 and her full collection Say It With Me was published by Seren in 2023. Her poems are recently published or forthcoming in The Oxford Times, Five Dials (Hamish Hamilton), Poetry Wales, The Moth, Poetry London, The London Magazine, Under the Radar, Oxford Poetry, Strix and Pomegranate London. She was a founding member of The Alchemy Spoon. She volunteers for Oxford Poetry Library and sometimes goes to the pub afterwards where with a pineapple juice in front of her, she strains to hear what people are saying.