I shape words to look like anyone else’s
I love to borrow the clothes of my friends who are not me.
Although it were better to move
Like the Knight, in a strange calculation
Rich with both gormlessness (why this odd manoeuvre?)
And deep portent (ebony and ivory, both suffering-rare).
But who can muster this kind of originality?
Croissants are delicious,
Because, in the folds of each equine horn,
There is the same thing over and over –
An easy, perfect fat.
Paris Howard is a Berlin-based writer, sex worker and mutual aid worker. She has published essays in Prospero, The Quietus and 3AM Magazine, and poems in Lesbians Are Miracles and Openwork Magazine.