This second skin
Filtered my breath
Warm from my lungs
Into the frosty air
Imprinted lines of
Lips like rime on
Glass on cold
Mornings it inhaled
Smoke that drifts
Like thought and
Felt the rush of
Nicotine in my
Bloodstream and
It circled my neck
Like a noose
And hooded my
Face so only
My eyes saw
What it could
Feel so if you
Wore it too
You could think
With my breath
Exhale my seeing;
You could suffocate
As I was choking
No-one would see
Behind the mask.
Kate Meyer-Currey was born in 1969 and moved to Devon in 1973. Landscape, whether urban or rural, shapes her writing. Her varied career in a range of frontline settings has fueled an interest in gritty urbanism, contrasted with her rural upbringing and which inspired the title of her forthcoming chapbook (Dancing Girl Press)‘County Lines’ (due out 2021). Her poem ‘Family Landscape: Colchester 1957’ was published by ‘Not Very Quiet’ in September 2020. Her poem ‘Invocation’ is forthcoming with WhimsicalPoet.com (February 2021). Her ADHD also instils a sense of ‘other’ in her life and writing. Showing this reality and evoking unheard, unrepresented voices drives her urge to write.