Naomi Foyle
The Q
I.
the Q
stuck in my craw
like the eel
I once saw
being eaten by a heron
‒ gulp after gulp ‒
unlike
the heron
I was not hungry
for the Q,
the opposite
in fact, but
in those dark days
of mourning
appetite
had nothing
to do with it ‒
the Q was time itself,
it lived through us,
we lived through it,
force-fed by its
piping & tubing,
its cake icing nozzle,
lodged deep in our guts,
its thick, sickly paste
squeezing out
queasy memories
of that other
lower-case q,
that YouTube q
for the food bank,
stretching back
street after street ‒
in our days of great grief
the Q,
like a glittering snake,
strangled all thoughts
of hunger ‒
dazzled we were,
the Q was an occasion
for tears & awe . . .
Naomi Foyle is the author of five science fiction novels and three poetry collections: The Night Pavilion and The World Cup, both from Waterloo Press, and Adamantine (Pighog Press, 2019). For her poetry and essays about Ukraine she was awarded the 2014 Hryhorii Skovoroda Prize, named after the itinerant nineteenth century philosopher, poet and hedgerow educator.
II.
the Q
was a sacrament,
a locus
for losses
we had all borne,
sacrifices
we had all made,
constancy
we all need:
who, in the golden years
of our childhoods,
did not learn
the Immutable Rules of Q:
One rule for Q,
One rule for all the other
letters;
Q always comes before U;
Q is unique & worth the
most points;
Q can travel on any square,
in any direction,
distending back centuries
and forward into the otherwise
uncertain future . . .
now, it is true
that for decades
I had tried to ignore the Q,
turn my back on its games,
but in those days
of deep sorrow
cutting across,
jumping
the Q
was impossible ‒
the Q
in its emblematic presence,
majestic absence,
was everywhere,
commanding our reverence,
quaffing our quiddity,
spreading q-essence,
policing our ps and qs,
as it crawled out
from inside us,
where, all these years,
it had been
quietly feeding . . .
III.
The Q
was a tapeworm
growing in my intestines
pushing up
past my ribcage,
tearing my esophagus,
thrusting its head
through my jaws,
its slick purple armour
gleaming in the light,
its thieving diamond eyes
staring into mine,
reminding me
who was boss,
who owned my country
its seabeds & windfarms,
politicians & newspapers,
its imperial past,
laws and lies,
old songs and young hearts,
and try as I
or you might
to get to grips
with the Q,
pull it out of our mouths,
ask it a simple question
or two ‒
to even think
about doing so,
like using one’s reason,
like boycotting the alphabet
with a blank piece of paper,
was, overnight,
cue for treason –
the Q is us,
we are the Q ‒
I was wrong all along ‒
we are not choking
on the Q,
we are its tail
& with coruscating grace,
the Q
is swallowing
as many of us
as it can ‒
sticking out
its curlicue tongue
at the rest
thistles stretch their prickly arms afar
Militant Thistles