Fee Griffin

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Following Advice to Be Myself at a Party [with subtitles]

everywhere as we left people had realistic faces & necks like 
a luxury zombie movie with a high affinity to solid matter
tell me what you want I said using only physical objects 
no latent ideas floating to the top riding a 
zinc chloride solution 
there are *microplastics* in my decision-making process & 
my ability to recognise faces is 
waking up with hot legs from sleeping in trousers not 
thinking of Laura Prepon & old firework casings unfurling during 
spring like premixed croissant tubes warming on the polycarbonate roof
how when crying over loss my mouth opens wider & wider
my neck opening & also my chest
all of which are realistic
don’t mistake me though I’m not solemn about this 
*please* let’s think quickly about the 
sound of a dog eating crisps on the internet 
[indistinct chatter] is my favourite closed caption text & YES 
I need a text description of what I am hearing so I can fail the Turing test and
still join in indistinctly with my realistic face & neck.

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FEE GRIFFIN’s debut collection, For Work / For TV, was published this month by Versal Editions, winning the inaugural Amsterdam Open Book Prize. She’s a senior poetry editor at The Lincoln Review and teaches poetry at the University of Lincoln.