Rack Press ever impresses – Poetry Review
The consistently reliable Rack PressTimes Literary Supplement
I have come to hope that a Rack Press pamphlet may be a tiny gift-box of unusually good poems – Alison Brackenbury, PN Review
Rack Press has the courage to be brief and elegant – The Rialto

Wednesday 12 August 2015

Poem of the Week: Nicky Arscott

This week's poem is taken from Nicky Arscott's Rack pamphlet, Soft Mutation, which can be ordered here.



Cheap Flights to Goa



The Israeli on her bodyboard again.
Alan licks his lips – fixed on the back and forth –
then misses his mouth with his straw.
Deeply embedded in cocktail hour
my toes clench sand – Alan’s horny old toes
attach too, like to the lining of a womb –
there are two types of person in this world: 
them who can, and them who couldn’t 
get a hard-on in a brothel, says Alan
sucking loudly. The Israeli girl is hiding 
from the army. But which one are you. 
The willing suspension of virility. 
The Arabian Sea is heaven. 
In a minute, a coconut will fall on Alan’s head –
killing him outright – and I will be unhappy
not to have got this sorted. The girl comes onto 
land, her lovely cheek still resting on the board. 
But which one are you, I say again – it is difficult 
to peel away our eyes: her hair it spreads out
blackly on the sand. The waiter brings another round, this time 
without umbrellas. A thwacking through the palms. 

The skinny boys are pulling in their nets.