We ask our competition judges to award four equal fourth prizes each year. Here Bruisewort, by mulika ojikutu-harnett.
mulika is a Lagos-born Nigerian with UK settled status. An independent producer, transpersonal coach and psychoanalytic psychotherapist trainee with poetry published in PERVERSE. She is also a member of the Kent & Sussex Poetry Society, so it’s a particular pleasure to congratulate her on this award.
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BRUISEWORT
You try to schedule days in which the rain is not a matter.
On market days when it falls, you move into the world
exuberant as a sin. Wearing yellow without irony,
try on wide-brimmed hats in tones you wouldn’t
usually consider. Delicate dove of a fascinator.
Hone in on unbuttoned voices: the trick is to swim in
gently. There is usually someone left
waiting, holding a slot for you in the queue.
Still life by the clock house, sight-dog
with woman handing out free words
from a collection tin emptied of tobacco.
Choose experience; to try. To test.
To remember trial has roots.
Inside the Church
of the Redeemer, stand alongside
mourners of Christ. You, with no faith
but you keep seeing moon daisies in the wake
of summer. Stood by the heel of Mary Magdalene
you wish to believe, as certain as the flower
that closes at night its day’s eye, that she sees
Jesus returning to his tomb.
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Kit Fan, our competition judge, commented:
The poem shares a sense of intransigence adjacent to beauty – or is it chance? – of everyday life. It’s big-hearted, non-partisan, and at ease with its eloquence.
The Kent & Sussex Poetry Society 