by Emily Munro
The plant hadn’t flowered for eight years
but this time it was worth photographing
and was lifted from its saucer
for display in the largest room.
Downstairs the Unit staff were laughing
to have handled another bender
as three blooms fell into arranging
by Kubrick’s inactive clock.
I pull out the camera
bought to record our family
between full breasts I am equipped, chimera,
lensed immortal.
I snap the pot, tendrils spilt at the sides
bursting pink circles
and turn to the window, my framer guide
to catch the season’s throttle.
It’s the campaign harvest, a warm air
filters chattering megaphones.
Park life snatches voters there
to uncoil wintered limbs in happy stretches.
The bowls have shut for reconditioning
but the rackets are in full swing,
each fleecy lemon ricocheting
or net-clustered in over ripe rounds.
Beneath the Arts and Sciences,
Neptune’s brick satellites,
beaming down a thousand appliances
zenith to nadir.
To build a barbeque nation
they have chosen lawns before laws
and now untethered from examinations
the young ones circle in packs.
About the author:
Emily Munro is a writer, curator and filmmaker based in Glasgow, Scotland. Her feature-length documentary Living Proof: A Climate Story (2021) uses archive footage to explore the roots of the climate crisis. Living Proof received critical praise from New Scientist magazine, the Times and Little White Lies, amongst other publications and was nominated for a FOCAL award. She has an MLitt (Distinction) in Creative Writing from the University of Glasgow, and has written two novels. Her work explores themes of the environment, history and anxiety. She is interested in hauntology and our relationship to the past in the Anthropocene.