2023 Commended - Phoebe Palmer, 'Staring into Space'

PHOEBE PALMER

Commended - 2023 Tower Poetry Competition, 'The Planets'

Staring into Space

I knew a boy who built planets

of paint and paper and pain

he went out

early on: clear night

to stare into a bottomless treasure-filled sea

until his eyes were comets in a distant galaxy.

when the world was washed in white

he’d go in

to spatter hollow spheres with coloured light;

to give the cardboard cosmos brilliant life.

there’s constellations still flecked on the desk;

each one surrounds a ring of emptiness.