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Laura Warner
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the poet
Laura Warner (she/her) is a poet, teacher and researcher. She grew up in Luton but lives now in Devon, where she's a PhD student at the University of Exeter. Her creative writing thesis, Menstrual Poetics, looks at the impact of menstrual culture and politics on unwell menstrual bodies. Her poetry has appeared in Dear Reader, Poetry Wales, The Moth, Acropolis Journal, and Lucy Writers Platform.
the poems
After Watching
The Craft
We are a teenage coven,
cross-legged around our brown bottled brew,
that we, with our spells, our bewitchment,
our camisole tops, charmed a man
into buying from the Happy Shopper.
Nice man. We are
going-on fourteen, we are
going out tonight, we are
tasting beer for the very first time. I am
the dark-haired witch.
I have the biggest pentagram
and the thickest rings of eyeliner.
I am the one they will blame
when our bottles are found
slung behind the period bins;
I am the one Zoe’s mum will corner,
saying, you’ve ruined her 13th birthday.
That’s what they say: you are
the ring-leader – you are the one
who needs reining in – you are
the liability, the wildchild, the total
fucking nightmare.
We are a teenage coven
in lace tights, black boots, and pink fluffy pigtails,
wearing each other’s clothes –
hot-pants, tie-tops, we are
thrown out, bringing the party
to the carpark. I am
the one who downs the whole beer,
though it tastes like gone-off pop
from grandma’s coal barn, because I want
to say, yes, I drank
the whole fucking thing. Watch me
hold the empty glass above my head,
the warm foam curdling in my hair mascara, dripping
down the front of my crop top – watch me
single-out a friend to push my body against –
spreading knees wide, thrusting hips low,
working the beat, the strap of my cami
slipping off my shoulder as I loll on the bonnet
of Zoe’s dad’s car – Zoe’s dad’s eyes
glued to the tarmac as he fumbles
for his keys – I said watch me.
Just watch me.
First Full Day of Bleeding
Change your knickers within thirty minutes of putting them on.
Answer your daughter’s questions. Let her see the brown blood in the cup.
Point out the lumps.
Make an insufficient amount of porridge. Leave it to clot in the pan.
Cut the bread poorly.
Talk into the wrong phone.
Put on clothes that resemble pyjamas, dark at the crotch.
Let a friend pick you up and take you for coffee in a café she can park right outside.
Cry because they’re out of their vegan chocolate spread.
Stare into space.
Feel your legs fizz as you climb the stairs to the exit.
Lean against a doorframe on the main road. This is you, typical you, imagining yourself exhausted. Lay your head down on the passenger seat.
Follow your friend around M&S clutching a pot of coconut yoghurt that is too expensive, readying yourself for the feeling of blood spilling.
Buy the yoghurt. Eat it in bed with a heat pack in your knickers.
Another pair of knickers.
Wipe blood from the toilet seat/lino/sink.
Call yourself a lazy prick because you know you should write this but don’t know how to
make yourself start. Read instead.
Call yourself a stupid lazy prick because you can’t follow the words in the book you are
trying to read about menstrual cycles. Look at the pictures instead.
Call yourself a self-obsessed stupid lazy prick because you
keep thinking about how bad you feel when you’re meant to be studying the diagrams.
Wish your heat pack was still hot. Get teary.
Text your partner that you miss him.
Find an episode of Escape to the Country hosted by Alistair Appleton. Enjoy his woollen waistcoat. His beard. The way he has aged and rounded with you. Fall asleep before he reveals the mystery property.
How to Fish
It’s not my job to teach you how to fish. You can’t keep splashing
around in rockpools with a cane-handled net declaring yourself
a fisherman, sitting in your beach hut, boasting state-of-the-art
binoculars. Oh, you’ve identified a buoy? Bobbing far out?
You've photographed it, considered it, and can report the outlook
to be ‘as benign as dimpled buttocks’? This is not fishing!
‘Boning up,’ you call it: online tutorials, squeezing ships into bottles,
boasting your dexterity tugging those tiny strings. Slow. Hand.
Clap. Just saying, I hate your personalized logbook: You’re a
reel catch isn’t funny, and what do you have to record?
You spend days admiring your arse in your yellow bib and brace.
Where are your bait fish? Where is your tackle?
You’ve no pots, no spear, not even a sharpened stick.
Meanwhile, here I am, night after night, paddling in the shallows,
feet all snared up in your ghost nets. Imagine: they’ve never caught
as much as a crab, but somehow, I’m entangled. Now, the tide’s coming in,
it’s as dark as an ultrasound, and where the hell are you? Occupied
reciting the shipping forecast, grilling fishfingers, combing your
beard. Dock-talker! Cock-walker! Aye-aye,
Captain Bird’s-Eye View –
pedlar of bycatch and discard.
Publishing credits
After Watching The Craft / How to Fish: exclusive first publication by iamb
First Full Day of Bleeding: The Moth (Issue 51, Winter 2022)