i am just a shadow in the dream of a ghost
of these flows of light that are lost on you
like so many endless turning maelstroms
at a molecular level, i too
not noticing through all the commotion
i am in the orbit of a black sun.
your woman, your woman does not exist.
a man is made of insecurity
and all the history of violence.
the symbolic universe is not
big enough for freedom. it will not be
expanded by words: detention centres
must collapse – yarl’s wood, its whole idea, a start
to end systematic sub-contracted
sexist racist subsidised violence.

and man should rather perish than take and steer
and twice rather perish than make himself
hated and feared. he said from on high
paraphrasing a misogynist.
britain: two women a week are murdered
at home, by a partner or ex-partner;
one third turned from refuge for lack of space;
austerity closes thirty-two refuges
and counting.