Picnic
för min Svenska lejon
Fell asleep on grass-
empty bottle of bucks fizz,
a box of strawberries,
to then wake and talk
about Sweden, sexism
and bad practices,
hidden between sheets
of good, bright, bold history,
damasked in yellow.
Then it’s
ice cream and pound coins,
the promise of a month left.
I wish you would stay.
I wish you would stay
with me and them and bucks fizz-
I’ll give you berries
if it would change your
mind, but boxes of fruit won’t
even convince you.
So
instead, I’ll dream you
stay here, and count down minutes
in old strawberry tops-
I’ll watch you beaming,
your mouth filled with red mush and
wet with cheap bucks fizz.
Chloe Vaughan is the first person I met in London as small 18-year-old Goldsmiths fresher in 2013. Despite her love of Autumn, everybody who has ever met Chloe agrees she is literal sunshine in a pile of scarves. She is currently based in Manchester where she is widely regarded as the best living bookseller to have graced the Earth. She is Goldsmiths alumni and founder and former president of the Creative Writing Society. Her poetry feels like home. So does she. Find her recent work at MISTRESS Journal and The Manchester Review.
Words by Daisy May