Two Poems by William Thompson

Una Cita

A month of long-distance and video calls
makes us awkward as we embrace and kiss
in the slice of shade outside the airport.
As you steer us onto the overpass
the air-con sends a frisson up my arm.
When we arrive in Vilafamés, the haze
is thick with heat, the rusty sandstone’s hard
and stacked under the citadel where houses

concertina into terracotta and whitewash.
In the cool, rock-cut hallway of our hotel
the music of your gràcies, suggests the swish
of your dress as it slips from you. As church bells
ring you up the stairs, I follow and my heart
and how things are – just for a moment – meet.

Chaffinch

just here roughness under my feet
that watching shadow light
on that edge light on these moving edges
up down back again in mid-air
land long lines moving light
on these curved edges up, snatch down
hook at this long pink curl up
onto this dappling edge declare my rights
now, take off into this empty space

William Thompson is a PhD candidate in Creative Writing at the University of Bristol. Born in Cambridgeshire in 1991, his poems have appeared in Poetry Wales, Wild Court, Poetry Birmingham, The Interpreter’s House, Acumen, and elsewhere. His debut pamphlet is After Clare (New Walk Editions, 2022).