Zara Meadows

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Another morning

we wake & you don’t have cancer:
no strange solidities, no stones in your
kidneys, no egregious malignancies
in your blood. My ear is the stethoscope
which says your lungs are clotless, no red
bombs braided as death bracelets,
& the walls of your heart are chained
but so unchained. We wake & there’s bacon
frying at that one shade of livelihood,
the fat on it close to bursting out
in song. Your breath sharpens my shoulder-
blades so one, two magpies can sleep
on them, their beaks sweet to my marrow-
chocked pillows. I catch a robin
warm to our window with a breast so red
I thought of the night that followed us here.

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ZARA MEADOWS is from Belfast. They are currently studying English with Creative Writing at Queen’s University and their work can be found in Banshee, Honest Ulsterman and Abridged.