‘Shopping in town’ by Anna Stockdale
Sixteen steps under the crystalline awning that bends over Victoria Square
and I remember the umbrella bending over me.
I shed its swollen arc into a hanging fraction of itself,
and remnants of wet Belfast escape and dribble out
into synthetic bags of synthetic things.
Forty years ago, if this great limpid bubble of a shopping centre
had been around to laureate these cobbled streets,
would it have come down with a similar blitz
of abbreviated grief?
From issue #6: spring/summer 2018
About the Author
Anna Stockdale is from Co. Down. She is in her final year of her undergrad at Queen’s University Belfast studying English with Creative Writing. In between stressing about what she’ll be doing with her life next year, she enjoys travelling the world and spreading body positivity.
