Mrs Myers   Squat, with a trace of a moustache, you crinkle currant eyes as you hand back my essay about foolish Othello on a sticky lemon afternoon.   Stumpy, hair bristling with brains,...

Purple and TealNever offer your seat to an old womanuntil you’ve inspectedher wolf-grey hair for splashes of purple in front,or streaks of teal at back,the existence of which should alert you to the...

Salamander The jewelled eyes and rainbow-coloured skin’swhat caught my interest.  I watched for agesfrom the corners of my eyes and creptupon it carefully, declared nopositive intent,...

 A Black Bag of Redundant Teddy Bears Each father’s day we’d hand to himthree cards and a Worlds Best Dad teddy bear.An award we never believed.It was mother fulfilling her role-ever...

Tilling I work the soil with my own hard handswhile my neighbour, his sky-blue eyesringed with granite, stalks the fieldslike the elements that close hard fast around me. The deep furrows...

Her China SeagullIt is smooth like skin but cold.When I lick it it tastes like salt.(We must be careful at all times and know what we want.)When I see it, I think of my grandmother,I think of her...

Soup  In winter he made soup, taking me down the garden to draw parsnips from jaws frozen by the night stars,   then to the scullery to defuse an onion, chopping off its squib, peeling...

Nursing a StarI wanted it to be mine.They said it was just a pieceof broken rock. I said a meteorite.My dad threw it upand let it fall, a dead weight,but I knew it merely slept.At night I felt the...

Medicate or Rape Her: An Owner’s Manual on How to Quiet a WomanFill her up with compliments; fill her up with food,Undermine her confidence; tell her she’s a fool,Buy her drinks then fuck her,Then...