‘We Keep Our Chlamydia in a Bell Jar’ by Sophie Dumont

You can buy anything on eBay. You can buy scaled-up soft toy versions of viral cells. So after we tested positive, we sat down for coffee and you presented me with the luminous green fur ball. I instinctively stroked our Chlamydia and looked into its eyes.

I kept our Chlamydia amongst the scatter cushions because that’s where soft things go. Then my parents and the dog came to stay and I thought it might get dog-slobbered and dissected so you rolled it into the glass dish and placed the cloche on top, as if snuffing out a candle. As a kind of contemporary boat in a bottle, we placed it on the mantelpiece.

We speak of the Chlamydia but not the before. The green face sits in its museum, smiling, preserving our eighth hour together. At the end of our first date I entered your room like a ship and you shut the door, firmly and finally, on my wake.

From issue #12: autumn/winter 2021

About the Author
Sophie Dumont is a Bristol-based writer whose poetry won the Brian Dempsey Memorial Prize 2021 and has been shortlisted for the Bridport Prize and Fish Poetry Prize. Her poems can be found in The Rialto, The Interpreter’s House, The Moth and will be published in Under the Radar and Neon later this year. She has written three immersive theatre productions for Riptide. Visit her at sophiedumont.co.uk