A Wee Guest Poem: Ross Wilson

WORTH

A finger contacts a pupil.
A twenty-five year old face,
ten years ahead of itself,
blinks into focus.

A twisted sneer turns
from the mirror.
A hand grabs flab
bulging off a belly.

Irn Bru washes breakfast down –
crisps and diet pills.
A lip hooks a fag,
pink-nailed hands fill

clothes with tattooed limbs.
Chapped lips cough, cursing
that fuckin' place
where pettiness chokes the air

like the nooses her pierced lip puffs
off a crabbit sneer.
A sour breath wheezes
from a face – a bitter wind.

And because some things
are hard to face,
her eyes glisten
under contacts circled by

mascara-snares blinking shut
on a mind full of its own shit.
On a world viewed through
lashes bared like teeth.

On a life existed, not lived,
£5:93 by the hour –
for that’s what they tell her
she’s worth.

*     *     *

Ross Wilson comes fae Fife and his first chapbook will be published by Calder Wood Press in November.