[Digital Poetics 4.8] Chopped Tomatoes and Family Scenario by Will Harris

Morning Commute by Will Harris

Chopped Tomatoes

Before the idea, the 
action; before the action, 
the object, the can of 
Savers chopped tomatoes 
picked up, among other 
items, from Bow foodbank 
for Saul who was fired 
from his job on a building 
site in Catford where 
he was illegally employed
after an accident in which 
he lost an arm and leg. 
Abstraction is grotesque. 
What word – what 
single word – could express 
the look on Farida’s face 
when she said that Saul,
on his birthday, drank a
bottle of vodka, tore off his 
clothes & rode over the 
flowerbeds calling Jack 
a fucking cunt. There’s 
a file on Saul with a sheaf 
of incident reports that will 
now include a report on 
this, but in an effort not 
to name – & so pathologise – 
the symptom, the slide 
from accident to incident, 
I thought of overlaying 
a series of other incidents 
on top of her description 
starting with the time in my 
late teens when I was at 
a festival with Jamie & Sara 
watching Grace Jones on 
the main stage and it started 
to rain so I got out a 
disposable cagoule which I 
realised, as soon as I put it on, 
was damaged, perforated 
with tiny holes. The rain 
was heavy. The perforations 
made it feel heavier, containing 
the rain in the layer between 
the cagoule and my clothing. 
Grace Jones was singing 
‘Pull Up To The Bumper’, 
Sara & I swaying along, not 
really dancing, pinioned 
to the spot, when suddenly 
a duct of rain broke between 
the cagoule & the neckline 
of my t-shirt and I was lying 
in bed at university, blood 
on my face, having tried 
to hop down a flight of stairs 
& banged into a wall. Sara 
was crouched above me 
tending to my wound with 
a kitchen towel, braced 
against me like I was a sick 
animal who might lurch away 
& injure itself further. And 
then Sara wasn’t just stanching 
the flow of blood but kissing 
the sweat on my neck & on 
the collarbone where my t-shirt 
met the leaky cagoule. I’d 
never been kissed or fucked. 
Before the action, the idea; 
before the opening up of a 
can of tomatoes, which until 
that point had only been 
an object, were words – words 
overtaking thought, dripping 
down the back of my jeans, 
impeding movement. But 
what words – what single 
words – could express 
to Farida, to Saul, to Jamie, 
to Sara, the various 
injustices which clipped 
time around that moment 
the wheelchair broke 
over the roses and 
hydrangeas, & I was 
naked, the rain infused 
with the taste of blood, 
drunk & silent & letting it 
all happen

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Family Scenario

The shouting grew louder. 
       I threw my Discman at the wall. 
            The CD kept spinning as it hit the ground. 
       I got out of bed and tiptoed to their room. 
It was empty, but the radio was on. 
       And then they burst in from all sides shouting “Surprise!” 
            But I couldn’t see their faces behind the balloons, I couldn’t move. 

It was the night of my sister’s birthday, and they were about to cut the cake. 
       “We’re about to cut the cake!” shouted Dad. 
             He had just put up some new blinds. Through the wonky 
       slats I could see a strange man in my parents’ room, turning 
out their clothes. I stared at the mug shelf. 
      “We’re about to cut the cake!” shouted Dad. 
            My diary was open on the table: I want a floor that heats up 
      in the sun! 
                                  I want parents who talk! 
                                                                                            I want to paint! 

Mum said she was sorry for dropping me on the beach when I was a baby. 
      She said she was sorry but she had to go. 
            I realised I’d been throwing flowers at the sea ever since puberty. 
            But it was late now. 
Instead of talking, we lay next to each other in craters of warm sand. 
            No one was related. Everyone was in love.

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Will Harris is a London-based writer. He is the author of the poetry books RENDANG (2020) and Brother Poem (2023), both published by Granta in the UK and by Wesleyan University Press in the US. He helps facilitate the Southbank New Poets Collective with Vanessa Kisuule, and co-translated Habib Tengour’s Consolatio with Delaina Haslam in 2022. He currently works in extra care homes.

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