A grave doesn’t require a body to be a grave.
But it does require the idea of death.

How kind of you to dig me this deep, rectangular pond.

What you really want to know is whether the centre
of a Party Ring is consumed along with the Party Ring.

The waiter lifts the cloche, Your hole, sir.
(I’m the waiter).

Did you hear the one about the topologist who
dipped her mug into her donut?

That’s what we’re like when we’re in love. A couple
of seven-holed donuts, unsure if we’re dipping

or being dipped. Look, I didn’t dig this pit. I didn’t
puncture your tyre. It’s not my fault water is escaping

from your bucket. If you’d just stop burying me
for one second, and check the bureau,

(top draw) you’d find a diagram like the one
for The Evolution of Man, in which I,

slouched and incapable of using tools, gradually
straighten, pick up a shovel, and become you.

Read Ella Frears on “Rabbit Hole” and “Hole Manifesto.”

Ella Frears is a poet and artist originally from Cornwall, based in London. Her collection Shine, Darling (Offord Road Books, 2020) was shortlisted for the Forward Prize for Best First Collection and the T. S. Eliot Prize for Poetry.