Kweku Abimbola

    Dance With My Father after Luther I never danced with my father more so beside him, sometimes across in the clock face of summer dance circles. My father walks backwards better than most walk forward— so whenever he sewed his steps into the living room...

Paul Bavister

    Jigsaw A family photo, blown up and chopped into a thousand pieces then tipped on the table. We found our eyes first, as they swirled through fragments of black jumper, dark pine trees and an orange sunset sky. The jigsaw became a winter tradition, and...

Anne Donnellan

      Lent As if it wasn’t enough cycling three miles to eight o’clock mass on cold white mornings I stayed in the chapel after the final blessing too early for class in the Colaiste I filled in time around the shadowy stations of the cross the...

Sarah Thorne

      Collateral Damage The darkening sky skids past at sixty miles an hour. My eyes are keeping a vigil over the dead fringes of tarmac either side of the road as I drive, flicking from the cars in front of me to the next unidentified something lying...

Philip Gross

      Charm Enough of scorch, scald, sore- and rawness. Sometimes flesh longs for eclipse. Mesh over mesh, compact me with cool plaster. Swaddling clothes.  Dry crust.  Sarcophagus. A scratch, a bramble rip… a mere sly snick from a page of your...