Member Poem

My number’s in an iPhone
next to a straw pillow
on a massively hard bed
next to a bedside table
that holds an inch of vodka
in a bottle bought from Helsinki Airport lounge,
beside a packet of Chinese herbs
and a ridiculously thick paperback;
in a hotel in a province
the name of which I can’t pronounce
where the food is nitrate hot
and its morsels unidentifiable;
behind the table, a window;
outside the light has faded
and if the crew hadn’t all clocked off
they could create their own,
and there on that phone is logged
the duration of our dialogue
which went something like,
Do you want to fall in love?
and that Cage is not an asshole
and that in the morning
you’ll have to fire the producer
despite your jetlagged head,
and here it is on my phone too,
just a basic device
in an unpretentious living space
in a totally undramatic life
despite the fact that
I’m a cast of thousands.

(First published in Likely Red, 30 September 2017)