Bedroom Tax
Space is heavy, a weight to be slung across a shoulder and hauled from room to room. Space is hungry. An extra room devours a meal or two a week, demands meat, more meat, the choicest cuts. Space sets a place at the table, tips you from your armchair and will not let you rest. Space is a thief. It rifles under your mattress and through your cupboards, finds the jam jar filled with coppers and complains Is this all? Space takes your winter coat and cuts the sleeves, picks at the stitching on your shoes until the leather parts and rain pours in. Space is a formula - a sliding scale of jiggery pokery multiplied by fear. Space says you have little and deserve less; it expands to squeeze the air from your chest, swells to fill the nothing left with space. JACQUELINE SMITH Jacqueline Smith works as an interviewer and lives in London. Her poems have previously been published in Ambit, South Bank Poetry, Inkspill, Spilt Milk and Cake. Bedroom Tax first appeared in South Bank Poetry. |