By Jessica Lightfoot-Toye

Carousel 5

Paradox strikes itself down on the doom calendar

and the room reverberates limitlessly

down the aisle of double-concentration

before vanishing completely.

Pouring outwardly into empty spaces,

the vortex’s vernacular, gibberish,

liquidises its contents, inhabitants’

voices become bodiless, then mute.

Something is listening.

From within the spotlit cistern,

the abyss lunges towards the offering

of a hangnail skinned on the window latch

Its colour, the lethal pink of science fiction

(pH non-corrosive), illuminates the

monolithic basin-alter daubed mauve

and splits the lip of the pipe’s drole thrum.