Sirenomelia Baby   (foetal specimen, pathology museum) This little mermaid is jarred; feels the moon tugAt the kernel of fluid she floats in. SealedSo far from the sea, stranded...

Two short pieces today – by Jo Overfield and Esther Poyer...Southend, SouthendSouthend, Southend, how does your garden grow?With concrete slabs and shopping centre domes,And Starbucks all in a row.*...

The sky beneath The sun set long ago but she’s still bent over her desk, examining the thousands of stars and galaxies preserved in the photographic plate, like insects in amber.Sixty-four percent...

Blind LightThe path is black, the grass is black,the tendrils of the beech are black,and the water lurking in the brookis the shadow the night casts. And yetwe can still see where we’re goingby the...

Poacher’s Pocket Crunching slowly through brittle frosted grasswith breath pulled tight in the lungs,the moon peering through gnarled tree branches& glinting icicles thicker than a...

A lost poemprickles the tip of your tonguethe back of your throatlike  a coat in mothballswhich you mighthave sent to Oxfamlaughs in your sleepwaking to a glasshalf emptythe memory of a nameyou...

I turn the page and find geology notes. Again: a polaroid of feet. Again: a diary entry.Today I climbed the big rocks in the cemetery where April is buried. There were many big trees. I climbed a...

Chino and Chambray Forty years older than I,Charles, in his tweed cap, stands starchedin gray chino and blue chambray. For more than a year his broad tiehas let the same iridescent duckfly...

In Jim Ede’s house Kettles Yard, Cambridge Your walls are twenty different shades of snowas sound and light get filtered into stillness.Eighty-three thin stones duet with their...

The point in crying over spilt coffeeThe way he slurped his scolding coffee,through hesitant, quivering lips.The way the handle could only accommodate onebrown, square,finger, that couldn’t quite...