new from above/ground press: Gag, by Lydia Unsworth

GAG
Lydia Unsworth
$5

And My Body and Your Body Were Shaking Gently With the Laughter That Does Not Stop

He’s fighting with me, trying to return to what it was. It can’t be done. The lid won’t go back on. He says tussle to make it okay, this subtle lack, this distant punching. He says cross. In his world, no one is angry. Life is set up to coil around the children. He can’t process his behaviour midweek. People let each other down. No one is awestruck, horny, devastated. Nothing salubrious in the way the dishes are laid on the table. There are excuses – practical matters get in the way. We don’t understand why we don’t have love, but on the other hand, looking at the calendar, it’s obvious. We work late through the night, feel fury like groundswell. Injustice rises like a trapped vein. There is slowness, which is presented differently to being afraid. There is no cowardice, this is merely convention. I am the wild one. I am the one who has gone wrong. I am the emotional terrorist. It is I who slipped out of the frame. You will ruin my entire life, he says.

published in Ottawa by above/ground press
March 2025
a/g subscribers receive a complimentary copy

cover image: Cay

Lydia Unsworth is a poet based in Greater Manchester, whose recent collections include Mortar (Osmosis), These Steady Bulbs (above / ground) and cement, terraces (Red Ceilings). Her work has appeared in many journals and anthologies including Oxford Poetry and Shearsman Magazine. She is currently undergoing a PhD exploring kinship with disappearing post-industrial architecture. Her latest book is called Arthropod and is published by Death of Workers Whilst Building Skyscrapers.

This is Unsworth’s fourth above/ground press poetry title, after I Have Not Led a Serious Life (2019), Residue (2022) and These Steady Bulbs (2024).

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