Fallout It worries me that she shagged him on his desk. I think of her bad back. I think it may not be that bad. I think that this only happens in Cosmo and that thought makes...

      Intermission The afternoon hangs like orange peel, our lips tight as a nun's pinch, the plump sucked out by three pm as if through rind. I watch clockwise hands; I don't know...

      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...

      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...

    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...

    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...

    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...

    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...

      Spring in Dublin People linger in Temple Bar take coffee and wine outside with coats still on, crowd around pipers, singers wanting a memory photo of this day. Young girls chat...