In the care home, she’s counting out the years
from ninety on, her worries keeping her awake.
The World Service watching vigil marks the dark hours.
Voices from the ether drown out those others –
the dead that won’t lie down, that want to pick
over fallings-out she cannot now resolve.
I have also played the radio through the night -
have held back my tormentors, with its talk
burning like a camp fire warding off the wolves -
and in my own small hours, I will remember her.
EMILY HAY is a lifetime south-east Londoner, a former civil servant and carer, now City Lit student and community volunteer. She comes from a long line of independent-minded women – her grandmother trained as a teacher in the immediate aftermath of the first world war. Her prose has been shortlisted for the Creative Future Writers Awards 2025 and 2026. She has had poems published by Lancaster Litfest; Morphrog; Poetry Bus and Gay Authors Workshop and is working towards a first chapbook.
