Hello

    quiet slid in bass-drop dams up pierced ears, furred with youth, his vest drinks sweat, high-tops, Moog-loop domed cap punctured with embroidery, brailled ethnographic record, reverb haze of brisk lavender, wire mesh trash of the park, sun-burnt song,...

    safety in numbers lunchtime, in the maths department arranging pencils by colour two friends, carefully sorting into clear plastic tubs a temporary stand against the inevitable entropy of fourteen-year-olds this, and each september brightened by a new...

      Autumn Fires Unexpected as burned stone, what am I supposed to do with this memory? The sudden shuffle of ash, flames clicking like needles, grey-cold flags. You there just now – I can’t be sure – perhaps about to be? 5 a.m., still curved like wax...

    CONFIRMATION Aircon crickets through the night outside my parents’ bedroom since brother and I are not allowed AC given the dangers of cold air to children. I can’t sleep under my polyester blanket; wet back stuck to cotton sheets fused to a mattress...

    Inheritance of Smoke We did not inherit land, only remnants of fields they burned— black fields scorched before we understood what it meant to sow. Fathers left us silence: not of cruelty, but some shattering fear. Growing up, we learned to decipher...

      I Don’t Remember Breakfast With You Maybe I remember getting brunch; or the time the dog ate my croissant; or when you fed me strawberries ironically in bed and we giggled with sugar on our lips. These breakfasts bubbled like new rivers. Now,...

        Remedial ‘Intended for school students who have not achieved the level of necessary attainment’ He couldn’t play rugby – the oval slithered away whenever he touched it and he fell in the mud or more often was pushed with some viciousness....

      You used to be shorter When we first came here two seasons ago You were barely as high as my hip Now you can look me right in the eye It’s almost impossible to believe You’re not quite as tall as Giannis But you hope that one day you can Jump like...

    Pivotal When our plaything ricochets falling who knows where everything hinging on the line there is a precise moment when nothing is certain a glorious terrifying uncontrollable wait the receptacle of our hopes poised mid- air with infinite trajectories...

      Art Exhibit I hear the roar of the ocean. I hear a series of shrieks and long screams. An eventual lull comes. My ears are an abstraction. I don’t know what to tell you. Last night a spider made its way inside my ear. It crawled out with fragments...

      Roman curses Nobody knows what Cicero’s gardener whistled to his figs and olives, what the consul’s young wife hummed to herself while slaves combed beeswax and perfumed oils from Carthage into her hair. Did bawdy odes to Octavia’s backside (Ah,...

      Lighting the Strangers into the cave for Celia Fiennes, who rode 3000 miles around England on horseback in 1697 She hears the locals call it the Devil’s Arse. the hill on one End jutting out in two parts and joyns in one at ye top this Cleft...

      A moonless night when lanterns are shuttered The track leads through thickets, threaded with eyes. Elusive scraps of dreams, they gleam, flicker out. Long dead stars pierce the canopy with pinpricks of white, cold and exact. I stumble through...

      Elements On my son’s desk lies the periodic table of the elements. I look. Amongst the arcane names I recognise, easy as breathing, carbon, oxygen, gold, beloved of kings. He shows me how it’s laid out – from left to right by increasing atomic...

      Forty (for Maryna) The first three days of war have a surprising holiday feel. No deadlines, just the giddy gasp of shock. Ordinary life continues. The girl in white socks in the flat downstairs plays a prelude then turns, pleased, to an audience...

    Conscience as taught her by the nuns   was a bridle on a young girl’s tongue   pony frolic legs a choke-hold   on convolvulus excess seductive as leaves skittering over moon scatter grass   dandelion pappus   weighted with girlish longings   a...

      A Memory Moves Me On (Teenage Years) Teenage years everything begins it never ends Berries shout my name at the fruit stall I hear a voice sing more than words, see   the cross of his cheekbones, the shade of his hair. I save his image to a locked...