by Zakia Carpenter-Hall | Jun 30, 2026 | Featured, Prose
When You Must Stop a Wedding His phone pings; the morning sun glares. Kyle staggers to the bathroom mirror amidst empty bottles for inducing oblivion. Red-eyed and dishevelled, with stubble masking gray complexion and black hair in matted clumps;...
by Zakia Carpenter-Hall | Jun 29, 2026 | Featured, Poetry
Black Cherry Ice Cream We ate it leaning against the rail above the harbour – black cherry, melting down the cone faster than we could catch it. And you laughed, mouth red, sunlight flaring in your lashes. I watched the boats move below us...
by Zakia Carpenter-Hall | Jun 28, 2026 | Featured, Prose, Uncategorized
Thunderstorms. Fireworks. I’m in the spare bedroom/office. Chrysty’s in a rotten bad mood. she walks the apartment like a donkey stable. kicks holes out of drywall and violently washes up plates. she’s told me get out and I’ve...
by Zakia Carpenter-Hall | Jun 27, 2026 | Featured, Poetry, Uncategorized
How to get here Among the joys of love was when we got our first apartment on a boulevard above the trams and tree-tops and the wires that cut the street like tangram puzzles and our friends would come with olives and cheap wine they found the...
by Zakia Carpenter-Hall | Jun 26, 2026 | Featured, Poetry, Uncategorized
Khair At the feet of al-Ka‘ba you asked for a daughter. You named me Khair – Blessing. I answered inside you forcing myself into your ribs remaking you in the emptiness of your lungs. in the space he made— his shoes left in the...
by Zakia Carpenter-Hall | Jun 24, 2026 | Featured, Poetry
Smashing Narcissus We set about him with rifle butts and spades, waiting our turn alongside our enemies, the same sunburnt flesh, the same blistered feet. Met where our camps, the same badly pitched shelters, the same lack of meat, converged. Laboured...
