Keeping Hens     She wore yellow Marigold gloves to catch them, needed fleece-lined rubber between their feathers   and her fear - the aerated bones hollow as straws, the...

      Enlightenment 82 On the bus people have plans in their pockets and misgivings are loose change. Their smiles tell you lies and you pocket the difference Stars drip from zips...

    Fat Man Oh ribbon weaver what did you weave in the war room for Coventry? Fine sky blue yarns, fat Havana halos, the prophetic ligature for stained black saints. Oh war shepherd the...

    Mute After T. S. Eliot I’m holding out my hair like it’s a snake – a slow loop from wrist to wrist. This is how I string my bow: begin softly, pianissimo, before the great crescendo...

    Rain At first I thought it was a car pulling up the gravel drive. Now no-one can leave the house. See the fledglings in their speckled overcoats Lined up, scouring the garden as if...

      On Sleeping Alone. oh my oh my what big teeth you have you letters of love smelling of sandlewood in your special box of disappointment and raging not sleeping soundly...

    Changeling, The It's my indifference That shows the difference. Duty Officers have to chain me to my train seat. I'm reluctant to be bound for home. They worry me back through time and...

  The Shelter Wood Ending ten nights on blue tile and sarissa, I crushed rosemary to my face sitting in a circle under the shelter wood. Thrilled to enter the darkness again, I was altered like...

      Municipal Ambition When I think of the neglect. The years of untended want gone to waste. My God – I could go down on my knees and weep. Weep! like a silent movie heroine bathed...

      Cracking British Pen There is a pig in my pen unable to crawl out, its snout protrudes, black with ink, sniffing across the paper. I think of Great Britain and its cracking...