Set the microwave to 3 minutes, she reads,

Throwing away the cardboard sleeve.

Sleep is a healer (or so they say)

and so is lasagne.

The microwave ticks in the kitchen,

oh, to be cheese sauce, what a thought.

Lips lapping against another’s ankles,

plunging both hands into the foam mattress,

or later, when they’ve gone, sinking a four-pronged fork

into the sheets of this week’s seventh, eighth,

microwave meal.

Tonight, the sheep count backwards

from whiskey kisses, to bare lipped quips,

the hills and the fence and the air and the grass

and the flock, wrapped in baking paper –

left out to cool.

She foams at the mouth,

vomiting love songs

vomiting songs about love

vomiting love songs about love,

all kitchen appliances,

switched off at the wall.

In dreams now, lovers stick around

like dead skin.

Meg Edwards is a fourth year student at the University of Edinburgh studying English Literature and History. She is the Culture Section Editor and a Copy Editor for Ensemble Magazine.