by Imogen Wade
I am not the woman who knelt, cold and crucified, beneath the moon
lighting your bedroom. I moved above you, cross swinging between
my breasts, and your eyes swallowed any beauty I may possess.
Green years bind our lives, twisting vines that bear fruit which keep
humans well. In the supermarket today, surrounded by neon plastic,
I envisioned everyone's bodies filling up with petrochemicals like
coin jars. We have begun to wonder, lately, what is inside your body.
Biopsies and scans and conversations in a new bed, where you wrap
around me, and we travel back to the garden of indivisible lovers.
You have started asking me: if someone remarries, who are they paired
with in Heaven? Privately, I think that even if I had two loves, I would
see you in every constellation; that life, after you, would feel like waiting.
Light fractures in my chest whenever you plan our afterlives. I want
you here, now and in the flesh. I tell you: neither of us is dying yet.
At night, alone in the bathroom, I press my forehead against the side
of the cool sink, and imagine you bald with hollow cheeks, sweat
and saliva dazzling your throat. I close my eyes. And in the back of
my heart where I keep my treasures, I am that young again, rising like
a white dove above your chest, burning with promises I have kept.
Imogen Wade won the UK’s National Poetry Competition 2023, and has been commended in awards such as the New Poets Prize, the Foyle Young Poets of the Year Award, and The Moth Poetry Prize. She has been published by The Poetry Review, Poetry London, Poetry Wales, The London Magazine, and PN Review, and included in Bi+ Lines: An Anthology of Contemporary Bi+ Poets. Her debut collection Girl, Swooning was published in 2026 by Corsair Poetry, and her debut novel is forthcoming. She lives in Hampshire, England, and works in the mental health sector. She can be found on Instagram @imogen_wade_poetry.