Jean O’Brien

      Spring is in the Air Winter soil is hard and hoar crusted, birds peck with blunted beaks, pushing up are the blind green pods of what will soon be yellow daffodils, given light and air. I wait to hear news about you, hear that you resurfaced,...

Jean Atkin

      Finders We scoured the parish tip most weeks, when we were kids. We clambered it in wellies.  Ferals, we scavenged in the debris of the adults’ lives. Like a mad deck shuffled, our tip turned up a fat brown teapot without a lid/ a yellow rubber...

Sally Festing

      A Basket of Nettles and Larks Life lines still arc round the base of each thumb though the bulk of hand’s muscle mass lies in the thenar bellies, now flat as linoleum and tendons smart branches when I brace fingers, interrupting hillocks of skin....

Joe Crocker

      The Sky Was Falling There was always, of course, the cold – its freezing pretty fingerprints on our side of the pane. While we lay loved beneath the loaded blankets, a new day shivered through the filigree and mum stretched vests before the 2 bar...

Julie Sheridan

      Love Birds Agapornis They married in a chapel of black steel bars, tethered up their feathers to serve as stained glass. One year in and their chirrups are still hymeneal. Humans can’t help but pass by and beam at this pair, bonded for life. All...