Emily Cullen

      Coping Because I had a vivid dream I could telephone you in Heaven, somewhere my brain believes it’s true; delusion is a kind of redemption. My conscious mind habituated to our almost-daily conversation, my unconscious has found a line to sustain...

Becky May

      My Swallows after Ann Gray I talk to the swallows as they dip and dive wonder if they return because of me. I tell them the cactuses are dying, that I’m the wild boar rooting around for grubs, that I don’t sleep much these days. I tell...

Carolyn Oulton

      Toast Ken (now Kenneth) shrugs. He can’t have his liver ripped out after all without his reading glasses. I have Alzheimer’s. Those marshes. I know. Nigel (already regrettable) shares a name with – let’s leave it at that. Sends new guidelines,...

Adrian Slatcher

      Mechanical Bear   I would give you a mechanical bear and watch it move across the table-top. Soon the mechanism would go, poor bear, but you’d improvise and make it climb walls. No bear in history had made it as far. The first bear in space, the...

Bob King

      The Cosmos of Small Details: When A Young Poet Asked for Advice For Dean Young (1955-2022) Hey Bro, how do we know what’s real? Like what’s really real? Can you actually prove to me dinosaurs existed? Prove evolution? Prove radio waves? Gravity,...

Philip Foster

      The Perfect Platonic Prison The canal is the most perfect of mirrors reflecting the purples and blues of the boats and the greens and blacks and blues of the trees. They all reach down in perfect symmetry. There are shabby huts and black cats....