Poetry by Remi Seamon

                 ​Tyler Cipriani CC




Bad Habits

Nail-biting wife-beating they
bring it in with them, needing
XL condoms, chopped walnuts
oxtail, but I’m disappearing
into the backroom
to eat cornbread
illegally. The olives are along here
somewhere, what beautiful bruising
peaches this time of year. All the signs
of a good season. Her husband handsome
as a sardine. Brushing crumbs
from my mouth. Some days are worse than others. 
Some days everyone wants the secret
the salami. She needs more than olives, all I can offer
half off, buy one get one second shift arms
directions to jars, remnants of a crime
in my pockets. I say
Aisle 3.





Oxfam Bookshop, Sidney Street

16 and devoted
to the garbage disposal, contemplating
the adolescent question of starving, of listening
to other voices, of tinning
my own. I am bad at algebra, completing
algebra, keeping my mind off algebra
sitting on my desk at home, bad at completion,
maintaining relationships with teachers, homework
friends, bad at acting
any age, bad
at unsensibility and making plans, at
upsetting my mother, father, etcetera
at stomping around in goth boots. Bad
at conviction and yelling
at open mics, expressing anger at a synonym
for cat synonym for violence, sure, I’m angry
at my need to cross the street for any man with
or without conviction, I told my need to fuck off 
but “fuck” lacks conviction
in my voice, at least. I’m not proud of my synonym for cat.

                            Bad at hormones

and looking people in the eye, at looking
like I know  what I’m doing for the two hours
I sit at the till handling
the wrong change. Bad at my job, at not writing poems
on the job, bad
at beginnings, especially
of poems. 

​

Remi Seamon is a student who spends her time split between Cambridge, England and Seattle, Washington. She was commended in the Foyle Young Poet of the Year Award and has been published in a scattering of small publications, most recently the Dillydoun Review and Unlost. She considers her primary inspiration to be her dog.

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