Phantoms by Rachael Smart

Yorkie. Seven bricks to a bar. Not designed for sharing. On the bed, Solly snaps off each cocoa brick and stacks an installation in the bony dip of my chest, gets his camera. It is immediate, the onset of the melting. A summer where the car bonnets burn. I say, you know what chocolate’s like on sheets and he gives me the shush, zooms in close. Burst shots.  

I think of Grenfell. A life stacked on a life stacked on a life. I think of the panic in that top block and find it hard to breathe in the flat’s steam. He's good with a camera, Solly. On the gas, boiling water yowls like a stray cat.  

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Rachael Smart writes short fiction and poetry. She also reviews literature. Recent work has been published at The Letters Page and Prole.

Twitter: @SmartRachael