Exercise 1 (by Podium Poet Sarah Perry)

Writer Sarah Perry

A thousand bald patches begin to itch

where - yesterday - I slowly removed

the hair around pubic bones.

Once - at school - a girl called Seren said,

'It's like mowing the lawn,

isn't it?'

I think about that 

and about the marks you left

on the back of my hips.

Today the canal is matte,

bacteria-filled

like the rotating tweezers

in the epilator I haven't cleaned yet.

There are two birds on the railings

and I take the path that curls up towards Angel.

You are the fear on the pavement

and the heat in my mouth.

Breakfast tastes the same as yesterday's.