Claire Askew’s work has appeared in numerous major publications including The Guardian, The Edinburgh Review and Poetry Scotland.  In 2008 she won the Grierson Verse Prize, the Lewis Edwards Award for Poetry and the Sloan Prize for Writing in Lowland Scots Vernacular, all from the University of Edinburgh.  The University also awarded her the William Sharpe Hunter Memorial Scholarship for her work on their MSc in Creative Writing.  She is now in the final year of her PhD in Creative Writing, and works as a tutor at the University and a lecturer in Literature and Communication at Edinburgh’s Telford College.

Stephen In Waitrose

In the supermarket, Stephen is

alarmingly changed.

His usual long and sexy stride

is cut to a shuffle, bafflement

breaking over him like waves.

Dreaming in the strip-lit aisles

he skates from Bakery to Salad Bar

and back, then back again --

imagines the basket in his hand

is my heart, a delicate vessel

for him to fill.  The pressure of this

is fit to kill him.

Stephen believes that lists are for

the weak.

The fingers of his free, left hand

are always at his lips, or else

he’s touching fruit or squeezing

bread

as if to test their force.  In the super

market

Stephen talks to everything--

the grapes,

the cheese -- especially herbs,

the dill and thyme a riddle

he must tease out on his tongue.

The avocados cower in fear of him,

for none is left unpinched.

He shoves into the kitchen flushed,

eyes wide,

arms stuffed with bags -- it seems

he has been gone for hours.

He unpacks, crushes, chops and

cooks,

stopping momentarily to tell

me things.

Like once: he said if I were food,

I’d be a cauliflower floret.

I’ve taken time, digested this --

decided Stephen is an artichoke.

His brilliant shell.

His delicate, edible heart.