Love cannot fake itself a family
foremost, there must be glue,
some ingénue to make the requisite
collage, sometimes cut clean or else
torn at the edge of where an object
warps to flatter dimensions, belonging
as transience to how she perceives
a moody shade of linen, hung to block
the light that has patiently waited an era
to receive us with care’s saturation
intensified by only children
making house in the morning
she will stick that hearth to cardboard
and it will never be dark enough
Sears Modern Homes by Maria Sledmere | Sandalwood Vanilla Poetry Reed Diffuser
Maria Sledmere is the author of over 20 books and chapbooks, most recently The Indigo Hours (Broken Sleep, 2025), Languishing, cute - with Ian Macartney (Tapsalteerie, 2025), Midsummer Song (Tenement Press, 2024) and Cinders (Krupskaya, 2024). Her work has been shortlisted for the ASLE-uki Critical Book Prize 2025 and the Saltire Scottish Poetry Book of the Year 2022 and profiled in places such as BBC Radio, The Guardian, The Poetry Review, Dazed and It's Nice That. She is managing editor of SPAM Press and lectures in English & Creative Writing at the University of Strathclyde.
