Multiplastic

Today I have poured pearly pink soap into small plastic buckets Screwed a cardboard sunflower to a bench Swept rice and peas from beneath a hundred tiny feet And broke a chair Today I have carried boxes that were too heavy and fixed cupboard locks with superglue Opened a packet of Maryland cookies Decided it’s a three-squirrel day And winced at the screech of metal on metal Today I have become popular, if popularity is being asked to do stuff Heard small voices questioning my gender Hung bicycle wheels from a suspended ceiling And mopped up a puddle of wee Today I have missed the bus, but wasn’t late Today I opened the door to the roof Today I discovered a dish of pins Tonight . . . Tonight I need to make this a poem.   September 2026  

Number one: That we might learn. That we might learn to value difference, and realise in that difference that we have more in common than we don’t. That we might fall in love with the unfamiliar, or come to respect the richness in diversity. That we might increase our vocabularies with new words. That we might realise that each language has things that only it can say and things that only it cannot say. That we might discover new foods, new clothing, new music, new ways of thinking and appreciate them rather than be threatened. Number two: That we might grow. That we might discover that similarity is not the basis for empathy, that compassion does not need to understand a language. That we might realise that guns and bombs and starvation and disease do not kill anonymous numbers, but that guns and bombs and starvation and disease kill children and mothers and grandparents and siblings and friends, all of whom have names. That we might come to know their names. Number th...