Susan Utting

Wokingham, Berkshire, UK

Susan Utting’s poems have been widely published, including in The Times, TLS, The Independent, Forward Book of Poetry, The Poetry Review and Poems on the Underground Her work was selected by the London Poetry Library to be recorded for Poetry International at the South Bank Centre, where it was broadcast with other international poets' work. Her latest Two Rivers Press collection, Half the Human Race: New & Selected Poems follows and includes selections from three earlier collections: Striptease (Smith/Doorstop), Houses Without Walls (Two Rivers Press) and Fair’s Fair (also TRP). www.susanutting.com

Poem completed 30 April 2020

The Thin-Skinned

scarred from early childhood’s

carelessness, insouciance, we

we remain impressed too long,

steam heat will not restore us.

thicker-skinned; they discomfort

us – we burn, we freeze,

to voices in our heads, our

mothers’ choruses of voices:

keep close to walls, seek

shade beneath the arms

of bushy trees, never bare