EMDR

By Patrick Wright

light-emitting diodes

left

left

eyelids propped open with matchsticks

hours since he sent me to file my cabinets

a cricket wicket ricocheted to slice my eye

a garden roller sprung back to knock me flat

a lathed splinter wedged under my fingernail

a dentist’s gas mask heart beat to blackout

then discharge the ward car park

whatever he’s done carries on subliminal

through sleep behind rapid eyes 

before I blink he opens his bag of tricks

hours since

he left me with a reel of accidents

reprogrammed me behind the scenes

I rank my traumas

left with the clown that invaded my dreams

when mother was replaced with a changeling   

when my love collapsed in the Lake District

another hammer-blow and the ice will give

sliding

right

right

for homework


Patrick Wright has a poetry collection, Full Sight of Her (Eyewear), which was nominated for the John Pollard Prize. His poems have appeared in Poetry Ireland Review, The North, Poetry Salzburg, Agenda, and London Magazine. His second collection, Exit Strategy, will be published by Broken Sleep Books in 2025.

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