by Helen Ivory | Nov 22, 2018 | Prose & Poetry
Grapefruit A yellow globe sliced in half, a hemisphere of pliable skin, a whole serving, a cool sun in a shallow bowl—such is the grapefruit. To one who sits upright eyes half closed, it says: Wake up! The bamboo handle of the serrated spoon is...
by Helen Ivory | Nov 21, 2018 | Prose & Poetry
Housewife (‘noun. (2) A small case for needles, thread and other small sewing items’) The day he cut free she watched him pack his panniers with essentials. Offered a mending kit to sew on the buttons in his new life. A housewife, a hussif. A...
by Helen Ivory | Nov 20, 2018 | Prose & Poetry
The naming of things You have swallowed a planet & I have been witness To its swelling & swirling, Have felt it orbit Beneath my hand, Have seen its gravity Pull you from bed To the toilet & back again. Have heard it atom along, Tap...
by Helen Ivory | Nov 19, 2018 | Prose & Poetry
Lampyris Stumbling along the lane through a tunnel of grasping branches, he couldn’t see his hand in front of his face. This is no idle cliché or exaggeration; he simply couldn’t. Emerging in the open on the great limestone hillside, he stood enthralled...
by Helen Ivory | Nov 18, 2018 | Prose & Poetry
Sea View Whenever he’s not with me I think of the mole on his back, espresso brown, mild in temperature and always lifting to the touch as the skin on our morning coffee, left on the side to go cold. The diver-bird-shoulder-blades I let roll like a tidal...
by Helen Ivory | Nov 17, 2018 | 2018 poetry picks, Prose & Poetry
Dear – or, maybe not dear. Or dear, as addressed to an editor, an employer, a stranger one has business with. But, not a stranger, intimate – like an ex, but not estranged, close as a friend, watchful like a long-nosed neighbour. You...
