Poetry: “Strawberry Shortcake Footholds on Luggage,” by Christopher Barnes

Bustling check-in desk, suited men. Orderly queue –
duty free sake. Vexed boy humpfed away.
Eleventh hour tannoy inspirits discomfort. She lays
Japanese Red Army’s blasting cap. Oyster-white
peripheries shock to black.

Christopher Barnes worked on a collaborative art and literature project called How Gay Are Your Genes, facilitated by Lisa Mathews (poet), which exhibited at Newcastle University’s Hatton Gallery and included a film piece by the artist Predrag Pajdic in which Barnes read his poem “On Brenkley St.”