by Helen Ivory | Oct 27, 2014 | Prose & Poetry
Sleepers You watch his punch-bag uvula quiver as the air he snores tries fresh combinations: left hook, jab, lunge. A word search lies part filled in his copy of Puzzler Collection; celebrity names cartouched in ink. His forearm hairs, erect in...
by Helen Ivory | Oct 26, 2014 | Prose & Poetry
Bowls Fine for an hour, then dull, despite a summer sun. Green tedium. But do beware, if nudged a bit, this game is good at slowly rolling on and on and on: little genuflections – bows, knee-bends, cupped hands, unfolding arms, weave in the dying...
by Helen Ivory | Oct 25, 2014 | Prose & Poetry
Fathers’ Day Just for a moment there you had me. Fathers’ Day, and I suddenly thought, I’ll give you a ring, that’ll surprise you. Well, it would have done: you’d been dead sixteen years and were never that keen on calls anyway. You had me going...
by Helen Ivory | Oct 24, 2014 | Prose & Poetry
Knuckle In front of the hyena enclosure I want to hold your hand. I don’t care about your other family watching. I stand alongside, stoop slightly to your eight year old height so the back of my hand contacts yours. I can’t do the rest though. I...
by Helen Ivory | Oct 23, 2014 | Prose & Poetry
Hamelin I never meant to be so singular. One day the Pied Piper came and led all the other children away but left me here with my defective soul and my callipered heart infesting the streets with my aloneness never quite shaking off the sense that people...
