Emily Wills grew up in Cornwall, worked in Malawi, and now lives in Gloucestershire, where she works part time as a GP. Her first collection, Diverting the Sea, was published in 2000 by Rialto, her second, Developing the Negative, was published in November 2008, also by Rialto. Her poems have appeared in magazines including Anon, Iota, The Frogmore Papers, Magma, Seam, Smiths Knoll, Other Poetry, Quattrocento and also in the anthologies Reactions 2 and 3, published by UEA; 'Something Almost Being Said' was commended in the 2008 Troubadour Poetry Competition. Additionally, Emily Wills is an experienced poetry tutor and enjoys facilitating group workshops since 2002.
Prefabs
Built to last twenty years,
like peace, they thought—
like marriage—fighter planes
and bombs were melted down
for roof and walls. Enduring,
they grow perennials, pink-bordered
wallpaper, carpets, trellis,
lawns. All night the blackout
sheltering rain gunfires
their corrugated silences.
Fifty years, and privet thick
as cottage walls. The lean-to blooms
dark multistories of tobacco tins,
his hoard, his smell. She loves
to pollinate the cucumber flowers,
those pale, summer openings,
with a soft brush,
tenderly.
Temporary as their stay,
their sudden leaving. Looking back,
they watch through masks of wire
and barb, machines, smoke,
sirens. They’ve seen it all
before, unblinking lidless
windows, rosy paper torn
open to rain, trodden poppies
littering unmown grass.
Return is permanent. Something new;
red brick, roof tiled, built to last
like peace
like marriage.
Landscaped and without a shed
they sit, they sleep,
demolished by such insulated
guarantees, such fitted kitchenness
such silent, silent rain.
in collection Diverting the Sea, 2000,
Rialto,
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