Nine Miles Stationary: Words by Tiffany Atkinson
we stretch from our vehicles like molluscs, raw flesh bared to a flaring sky. Fair play, I never figured Swindon for the promised land. A girl grits her heels on the hard shoulder, sporting an inexplicable ballgown at high noon. She spits into her mobile’s cut-throat blade, I fucking said I fucking don’t know. And my father, loving nothing like emergency, is on the phone too—should’ve checked first, should’ve... Though my life has not, once, yet, proved urgent. Some kid on the inside lane can’t wait: his mother strips him businesslike and points his little penis at the verge, even from here his face a clap of rage. Meanwhile the queue grows rearwards like a German sentence back to Bristol, where I stopped to squeeze into my dark dress. Lizzie, take it as the crow flies, I may have to bury you out here, though being on time would still have been too late. Lilies, exhausted, on the passenger seat; their scent given up on a wreath of my own heat.