David Callin

      Bunnies? We were delicate creatures once: shy, wide-eyed, exotic incomers. Holes had to be dug for us. Always toothsome, we have descended the scale of what is desirable, losing caste, coarsening, getting bigger, faster, fitter, more inured to...

Ramona Herdman

      She runs a circus now Her will drives them round the world – a cavalcade of needy clowns, prima donna gymnasts, tigers. Even in mufti, you can sense the whip back on its hook by her basking boots. They keep changing the legislation, so she runs...

Jacqueline Haskell

      Convergence   After that first year, they were never the same,  the planners with their Glastonbury smiles, their beatnik topology, though they still carried the henge inside them,  a degree or two of slippage was lost at the roundabout,  the...

Ruth Aylett

      Essential Worker Queen of the sandwich bar she moves no financial indices, wears blue overalls without red braces. She has planned every movement, her rapid questions in optimum order ‘eat in?’ ‘flora on your roll?’ ‘jalapenos?’ ‘salad with...

B. Anne Adriaens

      Beware the silent child (4) The arcade is a belly of echoes, jingles glancing off games and slot machines, repeat repeat repeat, punters’ voices a murmur that dies on the carpet. You enter to spend a penny, then retrace your steps to the exit,...

Morgan Harlow

      The Noise Outside That day, on the patio, you heard a noise and you jumped up, ready to act, while I just froze, telling the story again and again to your mother, her lover, everyone knew that you were brave and I just froze, my sister, my dad, a...