Under the hypnotist’s video
someone has posted the comment:
Now hypnotise a hypnotist to hypnotise you!

The internet is hungry for itself.
Not a snake but a reply-guy, legs
in the air, straining to kiss his own genitals.

Clicking through I end up watching
two very macho chiropractors, each
with their own cult following.

Due to the ‘sheer number of fan requests’,
they’ve met up to manipulate one another.
Us chiros need adjustment too —
                been takin’ care of all those peeps.

There’s an atmosphere. The taller
chiropractor elicits the loudest cracks.
My man, he says tenderly in response
to every sound, my man.

When they swap, the shorter touches
the taller uneasily. He fails to get his neck
to crack. The taller chiropractor stands,

straight as a rake, and rests a hand
on the shorter chiropractor’s shoulder.
I need some green trainers like yours, my man.

Remove a rib and let the poem have itself
for breakfast, I type in the comments section,
then click back to that first video.

The hypnotist tells the girl he’s put under
that when she wakes, she’ll find the word
hypnosis hilarious. There will be nothing

funnier, he says snapping his fingers, before
asking, how are you finding hypnosis? She laughs,
hard and full and right in his face.

And he laughs too, but in the manner
of someone who doesn’t quite get the joke.

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.