Carol J Forrester

      Newborn It all takes too long. Sheep too narrow, lamb too big and rain hammering on the tin roof scattering the quiet. Sunrise still sulks out of sight, out of mind. The farmyard a black mirror, midden cloaked in shadows until the security light...

Kitty Coles

    Stonecutter What tool is best to slice the skull apart, to split it neatly, cleanly as a melon, and winkle out that small stone at the temple, cuddled up like a frog in its deep-mud winter burrow, growing fat as its skin sucks in the life of its host?...

Caroline Am Bergris

    Circles A ping-pong chat with a stranger, dots join to form a picture – his steering wheel will turn towards you. However, you hear zero and confide in doughnuts. A ring from a friend marking twenty years, you see a green light for the next thirty – yet...

Ralph Monday

      Elementary Elements The elementals element-speak to each other more deeply than clever machines pinging out ones and zeroes. That is what the wind said ripping through the woods, an angry verdict blown down from an arctic conscious of living,...

Matthew Davis

    His Arms were Cold and Red When he lowered in the fish, they sank belatedly, like coins and just sat there on the plastic liner waiting for night or the first algae to cover their piebald backs. We knew how foolish he felt; he stopped using the patio. We...