by Helen Ivory | Jun 27, 2018 | Prose & Poetry
Alter Ego A cardboard coffin Small as a shoebox And filled with stones And tiny bones I take it to the Wood No good Shall come of this This morning I painted my face away And cut off my hair I left my long red locks For the birds To line their...
by Helen Ivory | Jun 26, 2018 | Prose & Poetry
Wake Long ago, I watched them pound their drinks while I hid, fiercely shy behind the door. An uncle found me there. And even now I try to block their shouts, so unrestrained yet forced, that room so very small. They laughed but said they grieved;...
by Helen Ivory | Jun 25, 2018 | Prose & Poetry
The Woodsman The blade bites from above and below until the wedge of air is deep in the trunk, like half of an hourglass waist, and the woodsman pauses, sets down the axe, and stretches his back. On the other side the second wedge speeds towards the...
by Helen Ivory | Jun 24, 2018 | Prose & Poetry
Azucar Negra The harbour too was beyond recall. It was evening, the tide a long way out, and the air redolent of citrus and crushed cane. Expressed as an equation it might have been a new opening. In the car park life-size models of angels with brass...
by Helen Ivory | Jun 23, 2018 | Prose & Poetry
Sonatina Of all the years we’ve been living here this has been the longest and the shortest. How often did we hear the moon drag an ocean through itself and a riptide swallow those several billion particles of sand? Some days began with an offshore...
by Helen Ivory | Jun 22, 2018 | Prose & Poetry
At the Football Welsh League, Division Three The bar was hallmarked by its desolation. Our few selves, staccato barman and a guy by the far wall, wrapped in what seemed some personal cloud, over crisps and a half. We cut down a footpath to the ground,...
