The Brexfast After
refilling the bitter smell
of the first morning coffee
with something more akin to fear
than I like to
acknowledge these days
there are two options
ahead of you – take your pick!
but I honestly cannot
tell you what they are
1. show me your palm —
let me erase your future
2. what does it even mean
to lie these days
and will you agree
that it is easily done
and in the initial stages
comparatively painless too
3. I am looking out of the window
and I do not recognise
the familiar smell of changeable weather
and even though this option is not available
I hope it rains –
do you know?
I did not ask for my own opinion
and you spoke above me
until I shared your shame
tomorrow is another day —
I fear – and yesterday’s coffee
not yet begun
About this poem
This poem was included in Best Scottish Poems 2019. Best Scottish Poems is an online publication, consisting of 20 poems chosen by a different editor each year, with comments by the editor and poets. It provides a personal overview of a year of Scottish poetry. The editor in 2019 was Roseanne Watt.
Editor’s note:
It seems remarkable that Brexit is no longer the lead story of the news these days, especially as it was only a few months ago that the UK officially ‘left’ the EU. Lucy Burnett’s poem takes us even further back, to the morning following the 2016 referendum. Reeling in the aftermath of the result, the poem takes on the structure of the ballot — though it is the third, impossible option which speaks most truly of the outcome. I found this poem really stirred my own memory of that morning and its grey, heavy sky, that never really gave way to the relief of rain.
Author’s note:
‘The Brexfast After’ articulates how I felt in the moment, and days and weeks after, learning the result of the Brexit referendum. Although my own sympathies are probably clear, I wouldn’t have felt comfortable writing a poem dedicated to ‘making-a-case’ for the EU – poetry isn’t the place for, nor best-suited to, direct politicking. Instead, the poem focusses on my own feelings: of fear about the future, and of shame about the result no matter what I voted, as a result of the racist undertones I had personally associated with the Leave campaign. I also focus on the election process, and make a poetic stand for the importance of the spoken and written word in a world of fake news. How could a result be valid in the context of so many lies? How could people choose – exercise our democratic right – if we were unable to ascertain the accuracy of the information provided to us? What did this make of democracy? And what of words themselves… ? I am sure that there will be those who respond negatively towards my poem, because of the divisive subject matter. But I also hope that no matter what one voted, readers might appreciate how I have attempted to formally enact the above emotions and political questions such as to leave any conclusions open to discussion and disagreement. ‘The Brexfast After’ is in the fourth section of Tripping Over Clouds, which seeks to explore the collection’s ideas about abstraction and radical change in the context of the personal-political, and sits alongside other poems responding to Donald Trump, the Scottish independence referendum, and more.
