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On First Looking into Rupi Kaur’s ‘Home Body’

This must be what god feels like: swimming the 

Slim interstice between sensation and 

Language, or within the silence as the 

Curtain lifts. Head to the source of the earth’s 

Deep percussive heartbeat like dum-da-dum

Waltzing with every last atom in the 

Universe, impenitent, blank verse blown

Apart by line breaks, bricolage applause

As spoken word verses raining down like 

Stardust, this meteor only ever half-glimpsed 

As it careens throughout the heavens. It’s 

Sappho if she could have heard Ludacris’ verse 

On ‘Baby’. It’s fire, baby, and I, the 

Reader, can warm your hands against it while

You still have the chance. A truth that one can 

Express in epithet form is that

Meena Alexander wasn’t on Fallon

Even once, and probably died poor. 

Poor as in penniless. So take a good look. 

And then again as it is reproduced 

Through a series of iterated images. 

That’s £19.99 at Waterstones, 

Baby, and trust me: 

There’s an L in ‘neoliberalism’ but you won’t find one in ‘Home Body’. 

Artwork by Rachel Jung.

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