Lunar Eclipse She stares at the triangle between her legs, the darker tip of it like a snow-covered mountain top. She lifts her foot from the water and suspends it as a skin-covered moon. She lifts her right hand as Zhenyi might have, scrunches it into an earth-fist. She holds her left hand up, palm flat, fingers outstretched into a pygmy sun and pauses: she aligns here in this moment, before letting her limbs go limp. Dear Vera Shimunia embroider me a star splattered night sky and sew my body so beautifully into a constellation so I can hang myself and the universe on the kitchen wall. Andalusia She licks crisp schnapps from her lips as she watches palm trees sway in Balearic breeze. She fingers pages of The Handmaid’s Tale, as she examines the body language of sun loungers. She spots her fiancé in the pool, hazy with cheap beer and chlorine. She imagines it is a stranger. She begins to imagine a different holiday, where she is alone. She looks beyond the resort, across the beach into carolina sea and imagines she could be crystallised like salt and drift away from here.
About the Author
Kayleigh Campbell is a third year Creative Writing Ph.D candidate at The University of Huddersfield. She has previously volunteered for Stand Magazine based at The University of Leeds; she lives in Leeds with her partner Joe and their daughter Eliza. Her pamphlet Keepsake is available from Maytree Press. Her work has appeared in the likes of Anthropocene, Butcher’s Dog and Ink, Sweat & Tears.
