single window
we watch documentaries on mute
from the sofa we’ve lived in
for the last eight months
the frames crash over us
the colours
the names
the stories rip & merge
& we don’t sleep or we sleep
all day
when we finally pull back the curtain
a slant of rain is leaning
against the road
slick with rotting leaves
autumn smoulders everything
back to its roots
spoils it
to a hazy gauze
of yellows & browns
we count down the seconds
before our pills sing their gospel inside us
we rock in our seats
eyes rolled back
towards the heaven
of improved conditions
all animals must maintain
however small
however distant it becomes
all day we drink tea piled with sugar
& wake in yesterday’s clothes
to this piss-bright sunrise
& our daily bread
is to not let ourselves bend
or break
under the weight
of this light
Daniel Sluman is a 34-year-old poet and disability rights activist. He co-edited the first major UK Disability poetry anthology Stairs and Whispers: D/deaf and Disabled Poets Write Back, and he has published two poetry collections with Nine Arches Press, his second, the terrible was released in 2015. He has appeared widely in UK poetry journals and his third collection of poetry single window is to be published by Nine Arches Press in Autumn 2021.