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Directions

we cannot be together.

this I know.

and yet, and yet 

when I close my eyes

I feel your lips against mine

your warm grip around my waist 

I breathe in the scent of your hair 

I am steering round and round that one roundabout in your hometown you described  

unable to turn off and move forward 

waiting one more minute before I indicate

and drive out into the world without you 

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The End

and when you say it’s over

there’s relief at fear and adrenaline

dissipated but still, it’s an emptiness – 

hollow, and no one to share it with.

(did it happen if no-one knows?)

no photos, because it can’t be evidenced. 

I dig a trench: in it I place 

a handful of poems and 

memories of moments shared in the early hours

stored only in our minds.

I shovel in sand, so that 

even someone walking barefoot

wouldn’t notice a thing – 

only waves lapping at a serene shore

as they stare at where the sea meets the sky,

at depths filled with secrets we’ll never know. 

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Les Mains Sales

during the French trip / mrs miyamoto’s wallet was snatched on the Métro / when we asked how / mrs sakai said someone had their hands somewhere they shouldn’t to distract her / i’ve wondered why they didn’t say A MAN SEXUALLY ASSAULTED MRS MIYAMOTO / because concrete words would have been less terrifying than someone, somewhere doing something / she could have taught us something more valuable than any grammar rule:

Say what happened.

It wasn’t your fault.

Nothing else matters.

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Bio:

Tamiko read Latin and French at New College, Oxford. She was the winner of the BBC Radio 3 carol competition 2021. Previous publications include “SHIMA (Islands)” (Alien Buddha Press, 2022), “Seasons of Love Around the Rising Sun” (Broken Sleep Books, 2023), “The Japanese House” (Cephalo Press, 2023), and “Gakusei (The Schoolgirl)” (Audience Askew, 2024). Her poem “Yurushi” was broadcast on BBC Radio 3 as one of their Friday poems in August 2023.

https://linktr.ee/tamiko_dooley

X: @tamiko_dooley

Instagram: @dooleytamiko

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