Angela Topping

      Winning/Losing   In Ludo, Snakes and Ladders, plastic dots determined whether you would climb or slide, and draughts where rules came out of nowhere the wooden discs stacked up, your win denied.   Monopoly meant scrabbling to buy and...

Joy Winkler

      Prison Scenes   Take a piece of satin, blue sheen, appliqué to cool shadows under a generosity of willow. So many ducks this year. You’ll have your work cut out to stitch them into the scene. Whole families of them squatting on the green...

Ross Hattaway

        Possum   On the news tonight was a woman who evaded marriage by pretending to be dead. She could have said no, so this was a clear, if clearly indirect, disengagement and instructive example for useful deployment.   I have at this...

David J. Costello

      Ghost   That Autumn he returned to clear the house, but found it full of immovable things.   His sister asleep in her cot. His father raking cinders in the grate. His mother clattering like cutlery in the kitchen. His long-dead dog...