Kill Switch

By Johnny Dobbyn
Highly commended, Daily Telegraph poetry competition 2026

The red-eyed imp ischemia
sat in the corner of her kitchen,
squatting in the litter tray,
and wondering when to make its presence felt.

It saw the Post-it affirmations
stuck to the fridge,
and sniggered at her silly notes
offering prayers to the angels.

Useless sticky paper pieces,
pointless yellow rectangles,
handwritten words of manifestation,
showing a preference for aphorism over action.

Better would have been
a padlock on the biscuit tin,
fewer fillings of the ashtray,
a walk round the block and less magical thinking.

Ischemia (iss-kee-me-ah)
is a hard word, a hard word among many.
Metastasis (meh-tass-teh-sis);
thymic (thigh-mick); sarcoma (sar-co-maa).

Hard to say, hard to read, harder to hear.
They are many and varied yet all mean the same.
But it was the nasty little imp this day,
and one hard to spot the doctors named.

It was in the small hours
– it’s always in the small hours –
when the soft-voiced call came
that ischemia was in bed seven.

In a dark warm room
lit with diodes and neons,
among the sounds of quiet sobs
and the shuffle of Crocs.

All by mouth was lollipops,
wet pink swabs of foam.
Water on a stick, and scant enough at that
while the clipboard proffered demanded consent.

She was once the mother and now the child,
so I sang her all the songs she sang to me
– go to sleep now, my sleepy head –
as they reached for the switch beside her bed.

• Johnny Dobbyn and the Telegraph poetry competition

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