The Poem of the Month for May 2025, selected by 2025 Anthology editors Val Braendler and Ben Adams, is Sestina for Ankylosing Spondylitis by Rory Kennett-Lister. The commended poems are Under obs by Louise Nicholas, Pre-dawn April night by David Bailles and Gazan cull by Murray Alfredson.
Sestina for Ankylosing Spondylitis
Rory Kennett-Lister
Descending the station stairs the light
Shifts from pure sun to fluorescent pulse.
A rush of panicked wind. I make my way
Deeper underground. The train wails from the dark
Along rusted, aging tracks that thread
Beneath the city like screaming nerves.
Stepping through the yawning doors my nerves
Fire, shooting blind, a flailing light
From hips to back. Stream around stones, I thread
My way down the packed car, the pulse
Of the track’s imperfections dark
Beneath my feet. There is no way
To be comfortable here, but maybe a way
To find comfort in that, to quiet my nerves
For a moment. A trail of liquid, dark
And silent, crawls along the floor, light
Bouncing off its unplanned edges, each pulse
Of the train pulling it further – a thread
Unraveling beneath the seats. A thread
Hangs from a suit’s starched collar. The way
His wife picks it off, smiles – a pulse
between them. Quiet passion, no nerves
Even here, amid this chaos, the light
Between them a halo pushing at the dark.
I close my eyes and fall into the dark,
Alone in the clattering tube. A memory’s thread
Flutters at the edges like torchlight
Into an unknown cave. The way
Your pale face shone as you took notes, my nerves
In the lecture theatre. The quickening pulse.
And now – here, amid the ceaseless pulse
Of this endless city, we roll atop dark
Waves as years accelerate and nerves
Fray beneath decaying skin that threads
With subtle lines. But always a crest – way
Ahead, an ever-shining light.
Soon an aimless pulse of pain. Eyes will open to the stark light,
The comfort of the dark gone as the train continues its restless way.
I will breathe deep to calm my nerves, and hold on to that thread.
Under obs
Louise Nicholas
Low sodium, was it? Or potassium? ?
All I remember from that night ?
is something in my peripheral vision
tracing an arc through air as a bird might –
or in this case, my mother, her body slowed
to match a gradual loss of consciousness,
falling sideways from a chair till she’d travelled
through all the degrees of basic geometry
and reached the horizontal of the floor.
Placed under obs that night,
in other-worldly light amidst angels’
rubber-soled shoes, a young medico,
eager to get it right, broadened the range
of blood tests, kept her there – for two weeks
was it? – ‘Restricted Fluids’ writ large
above the bed until her sodium levels –
or was it potassium? – had risen again.
Just as bulbs, awakened by an ancient memory
of light, turn on their backs and push face first
up through the earth into sky and clouds,
so too this memory of my mother emerging
from backlots of my temporal lobe
almost forty years later, awakened today
by my doctor – young, keen to get it right –
ordering blood tests, putting me under obs
for low sodium. (Or was it potassium?)
Pre-dawn April night
David Bailles
Along the eastern horizon
a pale-yellow dawn creeps
creating life and futures
as night becomes day.
I am awake and asleep
falling in and out of dreams
as strange and familiar faces
talk in brief mysterious riddles.
I slip my hand beneath
a short silken chemise
as sighs from the past
escape our knowing lips.
Deep sleep returns us
to a place of inner peace
where the unconscious mind
is free and beyond all fear.
The reverie is shattered
by the tremulous trills
of a single hidden magpie
with profound perfect pitch.
The melodious bird sings
like a divine messenger
awakening the silent world
with magical mystical song.
The solo is finally replaced
by a distant mating call
from immeasurable time
revealing truth and healing.
Gazan cull
Murray Alfredson
(Rouzanv’Ashraf ‘Abd al-Qadir an-Najjar: 13 September 1997 – 1 June 2018)
Through telescopic sights
the sniper spots the girl
kneeling to tend
a prostrate man
aligns cross-hairs
centrally
to upper torso
allows for wind-drift
mindful squeezes
the trigger only.
Sideways she slumps
across her patient. –
One Arab womb the fewer.