One last goodbye to start You board a plane set into a bevel-edged hum of concrete; it has spread its enormous metal wings into the inkspill of this, your last English night:...

    Bare I can’t bear the way she looks at you. The hold of her petalled lips, curled into a plea- -ease me tonight, pout.  And her horn-ed trimmed eyes, all plucked slices of honey this,...

      Seagulls When I phoned her last week she said the weekdays were OK, but the weekends were tough, especially Sunday, Sundays were the worst. She said Sundays were an empty day if...

  Exile Foolish: to not know how to work your own wings. On the ground, people stare, they can see them protruding. You keep them concealed, as best you can, but now and then a feather falls,...

        Clifford’s Tower for the Jews of York Have we forgotten the astringent voice of Silkin, on frigid conscience stupefied? Its queue-badgering ghost must shake the...

    Aquarius, letting go on the surface, sea melts the horizon. light blinding as grief – the mind blanks at the glare. this is the inbetween place. the space between sky and base. a...

      The word comes back It is a quite simple thing to be told. laid on the breakfast table, over chequered cloth: a name. the named thing – it began itself when no one was looking....

      Even God is Lonely Every Buddhist temple has a room for rebirth. Marked by sharp chiascuro Ely squatted at the angle where wall met the floor, at the penumbra of the light and...

      Present in Scent In the evening darkness You tap recent grace notes. Singing moments more clearly Than the instant of a bulb. Coffee smooth as an unguent Heralds near...

      But The Moon Must Be Found She kept an eye out for it as she vacuumed the beds and the curtains and the corners where the old spider's web hung on. For fun she practised saying...