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the poet
Queer, neurodivergent poet and performer Elizabeth Gibson is a zine-maker and facilitator originally from Wigan but based in Manchester. Their poems have appeared in Atrium, Banshee, Butcher’s Dog, Crannóg Magazine, Dust Poetry, fourteen poems, Lighthouse, Magma, Modron, The North, Queerlings and Under the Radar, as well as in the anthologies He, She, They, Us and You're Never Too Much. Elizabeth received a New North Poets Prize at the Northern Writers’ Awards, and a Developing Your Creative Practice grant from Arts Council England. Their debut collection is A love the weight of an animal.
the poems
Gift
The tub with the red lid reappeared, by the kettle and the matches.
I forgot about this tub; many things have just been disappearing.
Today, I got up and baked some easy muffins for the book group
that I decided last night to attend after years of anxious distance.
I threw in handfuls of raspberries, broke wodges of cheap chocolate.
The muffins came out low and wide. I hoped they would still like
and eat them. I struggled to find a decent-sized tub, and then – there,
in the corner I pass every day: red lid, stoutness, smooth clear sides.
Mam must have tucked it away, after tidying, as she insists on doing,
whenever she visits me here. Like the emergency loo rolls cuddled
under blessed dry towels on the top shelf of my wardrobe, like plasters,
hot chocolate, suncream, soy milk. She once said God and mothers
work in mysterious ways. I held the tub to my chest on the packed tram.
I arrived, and there they were, smiling, as if I had never left them.
Raspberries
And so,
after my cry
at the noise
in the world,
I sprawl out
to stare at pale
ceiling beams,
know that on the
walls are photos,
black and white, of
Hebden Bridge and
the hills and that one
will be Stoodley Pike
with its stone pylon in
whose heart chamber we
sheltered from the drizzle,
legs squashed against the
wall, and you held onto the
big collie’s harness as she tried to steal from
my Tupperware, where my raspberries were
disintegrating into pools. You knew that losing
my food scared me and being in that small space
scared me. You held her firmly. The world was quiet.
Balloons
It looms, the arch of pastel balloons, from Wigan to Cheetham Hill.
I cannot escape their rubbery tautness, the impending bang and loss.
They settle in horseshoes at baby showers and christenings, so many,
glowing from the windows of Instagram. We are all reaching thirty.
The current trend is wild animals, lots of green. It is gender-neutral,
which is welcome, but I worry that the fondant tigers are judging me.
One night, my music group at the Irish Centre has to change rooms.
Our usual cubbyhole is floor-to-ceiling full of silver and blue balloons.
I ask to move – pleading, quiet – and we go next door, which is bigger.
I text those still to arrive, with balloon emojis to play down my fear.
We are in the Leinster Suite, I tell them. I remember Granny’s house
in Wexford, where we would eat toast and jam and run in the garden.
I don’t remember any balloons back then. Now, we blow whistles, sing,
strum, eat biscuits. No one expects any more of me than to make music.
Publishing credits
Gift: exclusive first publication by iamb
Raspberries / Balloons: A love the weight of an animal
(Cōnfingō Publishing)