Your mum said that the phone was tapped
by Julia Webb
and no one believed her / but now we know 1980s / the phone was tapped / and you don’t know what to believe / or who / and your past doesn’t tally with what your dad remembers / or what your mum said / and your aunt tells things different to your mum / and your sister remembers things differently to you / and you think your head might explode / from all the thinking / and the trying to make sense of things / and your mum’s not here to ask now / and nor is your brother / there’s just all those unreliable narrators / and in that group you include yourself / and you know from your dissertation research / that memory is unreliable / that each time you remember something / you are not recalling the actual occurrence / but the story of the occurrence that you told before / and your dad likes to put the blame anywhere but himself / and sometimes you lie to yourself / to try and make yourself feel better / and now you know the phone was tapped / you have to wonder about everything else your mum said / though you can’t bring yourself to believe in angels / and none of your dead have ever spoken out loud in your presence / though you would dearly love to hear their undead voices
Julia Webb is a neurodivergent writer from a working class background. She has three collections with Nine Arches Press: Bird Sisters (2016) Threat (2019) and The Telling (2022). Her fourth collection Grey Time comes out in July 2025. You can find her on Bluesky @julwe1.bsky.social and X @Julwe1