Closed Doors

Rarely has been being trapped in a lift sounded so alluring. ‘Closed Doors’, a poem taken from Janette Ayachi’s debut collection Hand Over Mouth Music (Liverpool University Press, £9.99), imagines a charged encounter when a lift fails between floors in Edinburgh’s National Gallery. The consequences, the final images suggests, won’t stay neatly in the lift once it finally reaches its destination. Ayachi will read from her book at the Edinburgh International Book Festival on Saturday, 17 August.

My crush on you has taken us here to the mechanical failure of lifts in Edinburgh’s National Gallery.

We kiss all tongues in our borrowed time where only the mirror tells the truth and our weight shifts.

The pulley instigates flight until doors open like a dropped book spilling its forbidden pages.

You can find a copy of Hand Over Mouth Music by Janette Ayachi at the Scottish Poetry Library, 5 Crichton’s Close, Edinburgh EH8 8DT. Forpoetry enquiries, e-mail reception@spl.org.uk or visit www.scottishpoetrylibrary.org.uk