Jacqueline Gabbitas was born in Worksop, Nottinghamshire. Her poetry has been published in magazines and anthologies, including Poetry Review, Oxford Magazine and Images of Women (Arrowhead Press, 2006). In 2007 she was shortlisted for the New Writing Ventures Awards and her pamphlet, Mid Lands was published by Hearing Eye Press. She has been awarded a Hawthornden Fellowship to complete her first collection. Jacqueline is an editor on Brittle Star magazine and works for Enitharmon Press. Her website is
www.jacquelinegabbitas.net

An’ Each Dot a Bomb

It wa a map framed on’t wall, backorra door.
Snided, snided in dots it wa like woodlice
on a strippa rotten timber, loads more
though, an’each dot a bomb and t’size
o’ mi right pupil, cos mi left’s rate small,
an’t’streets wa’ thick as t’veins in mi arms.
When I wok up in’t neet, I’d bin falling,
mi face an’ feet wa cold, mi hands warm,
mi stomach an’ all. I bent mi ‘ead on mi wrist
and it wa mi pulse I could hear like a tattoo,
or like a machine printing; I listened
in’t dark to all that iron in mi blood
racing and from iron, steel gets med,
and from steel, ‘s picture wire, ‘s pin heads.

First published in Mid Lands (Hearing Eye Press 2007)