By Ewen Glass


Maybe we were tricked into thinking it was important. Our tour guide is decisiveness with an umbrella. 

There’s a yield in my shoes, padding where water might rise, grip technology into mud bank sinking. 

I chose to wear white trainers; how can I trust myself with anything? When I was young I broke my eyes by not looking,  

my head by thinking around. Silted taut, I followed downhill into my own body of water. It warmed like lakes, warms still, to the edge 

of action, a river bank dryer than I anticipated, a threshold crossed by Julius Caesar before conquering Rome. I wish to conquer 

nothing so much as myself.  My white trainers are only dusted red. I see the river close. How shallow. How narrow. 

Why couldn’t I cross?

~~~~~

Ewen Glass (he/him) is a screenwriter and poet from Northern Ireland who lives with two dogs, a tortoise and lots of self-doubt; his poetry has appeared in the likes of Okay Donkey, Maudlin House, HAD, Poetry Scotland, and Ex-Puritan. His debut chapbook The Art of Washing What You Can't Touch is published by Alien Buddha Press. Bluesky/X/IG: @ewenglass