Fear in Three Poems

By Caitlin Tina Jones

I mostly remember wishing away our years

but yes, I remember the chestnut trees, heavy and dark

with shade, with trapped humidity, and Angharad,

yanking back the neck of my polo shirt. I was never

a sore loser, not like she was, not like

my brother, frenetic with teenage sweat, clattering

the television to oil-slick static. I was always good, if

scared of most things, of midnight landings, outdoor

roller coasters, playhouses, wood

and plastic, but I was never scared

of those trees, their bulging fruits, their overhang,

the way they spun every known reality

into question –

Amnion, caravan

I was afraid of being a girl with you. That

was most of it: afraid of the soft belly

of the thing, how you were me

shot back at myself – all those years I spent playing

Aurelius, all stone-blind hardness, transfiguring

my father’s stoicism. Not anymore. Not here,

on the deflating mattress, half naked

in the lean-to, air cool, humid summer

zipped outside. Dog barking a few fields over.

Wood pigeons clearing their throats. The night before

we got smashed on canned gin, watching Mamma Mia

on DVD, aspect-ratio hiccuping, your solid

body against my side. To say thank you

I empty the piss box, feel July

suck my jellied legs clean –

Poem for losing your father to the alt-right pipeline

Pervading, chasing, slipping

through the dusk like a rough collie,

like a comma redirected somewhere dark

and sharply, where diamonds are all pointed upwards

in the end, their slick weightless light refracted, scattered,

and suddenly the sun exists in many nonexistent places,

the screech of scrambling, of breathing, of assertion.

His Usk still runs and you sit now at its bank

with your head in your hands, sun sinking pink

through your coke bottle, cheese roll

unwrapped in your lap, and you watch

the diamond light dance on the surface

of the water, then blink

beneath the bridge,

frightened out

of sight –

Caitlin Tina Jones is an emerging autistic poet from Hengoed, South Wales. Her poetry has featured in publications by Pan Macmillan, The Poetry Society, and Poetry Wales. She recently graduated from Cardiff University with a BA in Creative Writing.

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