I try to model kindness to all living beings, and it's hard

By Victoria Spires

I try to model kindness to all living beings, and it's hard

After Nikki Giovanni

Sometimes, the walls between fascination and fear are so paper

thin, it reminds me of when we had a wasps’ nest in the eaves,

and the crackling sound of their chewing in the dark was so

loud, it was like listening in on an empire's expansion in real time.

You asked what would happen if a wasp stung a bee, and I think

that's just about the most interesting question anyone has ever

asked me. I don't know the answer, but I do recognise

how everything is about battles with you right now, who will

win. A neverending hypothetical top trumps that we trade back

and forth, by way of a heart to heart. I start to say,

that not everything is reducible to winners and losers

but of course, it is. We speak of war - you want to know why,

and I comfort myself that even an imperfect explanation

is better than none. Perhaps I will show you that poem

Allowables, about killing spiders. So much of motherhood

has been learning to make the right amount of space for dread,

finding a way to close birth’s dislocated jaws. The autumn

you were nearly two, we had a glut of Tegeneria all in one day -

a day that was already so long and fraught, and it was more

than I could take. I killed them all. What I taught you

that day was the ugliness of being the biggest brute in the room.

This week, one of those silly papery ones we tolerate

(because we once read that they eat the big ones) has taken up

residence right next to the bathroom sink, and I hear you softly

talking to it while you wash your hands. You tell me

it's called Billy-Bob, and that you have given it a name

so you'll feel less afraid.

Victoria Spires lives in Northampton, UK with her family. She returned to writing poetry in 2023 after a 20-year absence. Her work has been published in Berlin Lit, Stanchion, Dust & The London Magazine, among others. She has been commended/shortlisted in several competitions including the Ledbury Poetry Competition, The Poet's Workshop Prize Prize, Aesthetica Arts Creative Writing Award, Artemesia Arts Poetry Competition, and The Plough Prize. She came Third in the Rialto Nature & Place Competition 2025. Her debut pamphlet Soi-même is available from Salo Press.

Want to enter one of our prizes?

If you’re a writer, poet, academic, playwright or visual artist, then why not consider entering one of our prizes based on the theme? There are cash prizes and you’ll be invited to attend our 2023 symposium. To find out more click the link below.