by Helen Ivory | Feb 15, 2019 | Prose & Poetry
Sglyfath My father’s tongue flicked the fiery Welsh; I flicked two fingers back at him and ancestry. Assaults, volleys, skirmishes, stormed fortresses; ignorant oppression, futile wars for independence. Siarad Cymraeg? Fuck off, Nain. Fuck...
by Helen Ivory | Feb 14, 2019 | Prose & Poetry
Bluebeard’s Cousin Your red jacket’s stark against the snow of the Welsh mountains. He’s brought you to his home, where everyone’s asleep. The sky is black above the mountains. You think you can hear the sea in the wind. He pulls you close....
by Helen Ivory | Feb 13, 2019 | Prose & Poetry
A Good Kiss A good kiss smells like nectar-filled factories and feels like skin wrapped over a corpse. Erupting from long-patient seeds, it stands still in the mouth, as eyelids move with the vaporizing speed of a crouching cougar at a midday...
by Helen Ivory | Feb 12, 2019 | Prose & Poetry
Interpretation of Signs This morning I pray for a sign, knuckles paled by the knot of tightly woven fingers; outside the mackerel sky mirrors their whiteness. I check the butter dish for Jesus’ face amid the melted and congealed scrapes that cling...
by Helen Ivory | Feb 11, 2019 | Prose & Poetry
Bluebells A becalmed sea, the patient files of Bluebell Revolutionaries softly jostle in the nettles, a flashpoint which, stored beneath like hope, softly bursts each year afresh, to remind us of possibility, renewed urge and of a final...
by Helen Ivory | Feb 10, 2019 | Prose & Poetry
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...
