Regency Romance

Chloe Wilson

I would have written but I drank my ink in a fit of thirst. My signature went south on a ship swarmed by pirates; it has only just returned with a rooster and a pig tattooed on the arches of its feet.

I would have written but the jam served with my breakfast turned out to be a clot of blood and to have exited the lung of my sister. It was my duty to bury her. The Turkey carpet turned to quicksand and it was all I could do to haul myself out.

I would have written but the dog caught its own tail and began eating it and the vicar said this was a terrible sign. We attended vespers in a mood of repentance.

I would have written, only the hares and the foxes dug tunnels under this house until the ground could no longer support its weight and it collapsed.

I write to you now from beneath the rubble. I write with the one hand I have been able to extricate; it scribbles to thank you for your patience, for your faith.

Chloe Wilson is the author of two poetry collections, The Mermaid Problem and Not Fox Nor Axe, which was shortlisted for the Kenneth Slessor Prize for Poetry and the Judith Wright Calanthe Award. She received equal first prize in the 2016 Josephine Ulrick Poetry Prize and was shortlisted for the 2017 Commonwealth Short Story Prize and the 2018 Bristol Short Story Prize.