Wendy Allen

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Reference Book

You lend me a book that says concrete has a
shelf life. You clarify the point by highlighting
the text that says its life span is set by
durability, which sounds both theoretical
and fictitious. I’m thinking of fourteen years.
You say the real time frame is longer
than a relationship can withstand.
For the next four weeks I time my climaxes.
The clock’s open yearn mimics a digital
sculptural arc. My manifesto ends. In the book
you leant me, the page we discussed is folded
over discreetly. It smells of fuchsia, vulva
and nine minutes of coming which is in fact
fourteen years of lasting.

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WENDY ALLEN’s work has appeared in Poetry Wales, Propel, The Rialto, Poetry Ireland Review, Banshee, The Moth and The London Magazine. Her debut pamphlet, Plastic Tubed Little Bird, was published in May 2023 by Broken Sleep.